The Rape of Proserpina Porcelain in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2022

Title: Rape of Proserpina

Manufactory: Doccia Porcelain Manufactory (Italian, 1737–1896)

Factory director: Marchese Carlo Ginori

Maker: Gaspero Bruschi (Italian, ca. 1710–1780, active 1737–80)

Modeler: After a model by Giovanni Battista Foggini (Italian, Florence 1652–1725 Florence)

Date: ca. 1750

Culture: Italian, Florence

Medium: Hard-paste porcelain

Dimensions: Overall (confirmed): 19 1/2 x 13 7/8 x 9 3/8 in. (49.5 x 35.2 x 23.8 cm)

Classification: Ceramics-Porcelain

Credit Line: Purchase, Gift of Irwin Untermyer, by exchange, 1997

Accession Number: 1997.377


In the 1740s Carlo Ginori, the founder of the porcelain factory at Doccia, acquired a number of sculptural models in wax, terracotta, and plaster made by some of the leading Florentine baroque sculptors. The challenge and reward for the porcelain modelers at the Ginori factory was to overcome the technical difficulties of this fragile new medium and to retain the dynamism and balance of the original models. This group, based on a bronze by Foggini, depicts Pluto stepping into the flames as he carries the struggling Proserpina off to the underworld.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/208847