Visited the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology yesterday - the idea was to make use of my free Art Pass. However, quickly discovered that the Ashmolean is a free entry museum. Made me smile. I wanted to go and see the gorgeous extension and staircase - as well as some of the paintings.
The stairs are gorgeous and most intriguing is the use of the space created by the openness of the stairwell. These busts are very well presented in this space and you can get quite close to them when you are on other levels of the museum. They must be a bugger to dust though.
The painting I wanted to see was Persephone by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as I have heard it referred to recently as Proserpine - and this confused me. There was not a Persephone painting in the Ashmolean - but a coloured chalks on paper sketch. The description clearly showed it titled as Proserpine and in fact Rossetti has inscribed it 'Proserpina'. I did some research when I got home and found that Proserpine is the Latin for the name Persephone (which is Greek). This all now makes sense.
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| http://persephone.cps.unizar.es/~spd/Pre-Raphaelites/Pre-Raphaelites.html |
I recommend you go and find out the story of Persephone - I remember being told it as a child at primary school and I have ever forgotten it. This painting by Rossetti is said to be of Jane Morris - the wife of William Morris who - it is said - Rossetti had a passionate affair with. He certainly loved her lips.
To quote Ang to Beverley - "Repeat after me ... 'I have very beautiful lips'".
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