An Offering to Ceres
Author: Dirck van Baburen
Origin: Utrecht, Netherlands
Dating: 17th century
Material: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions (cm): 173 x 130
Inv. no.: PNA66705
The work of Dirck van Baburen comprises religious and genre scenes. He studied with Paulus Moreelse in Utrecht. In Italy, he had as patrons Vincenzo Giustiniani and Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Van Baburen’s work was influenced by Caravaggio and his theatrical chiaroscuro.
The Italian’s zooming effect, portraying half-length subjects, filling in the figures, also inspired Van Baburen’s dramatic compositions. When he returned to Utrecht, he continued to paint in the same style while working with Hendrick Ter Brugghen.
Van Baburen, Ter Brugghen and Gerard van Honthorst became known as “The Utrecht Caravaggists”.
“Music in the Palace’s Collections”
«Ceres, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Demeter, was the goddess of the lands and fertility. From a relationship with Jupiter (Zeus), she had a daughter, Proserpina (Persephone) who, because of her beauty, attracted the attention of Pluto (Hades). One day, while the goddess was amusing herself picking flowers with the ocean nymphs, he abducted and married her, thus making her into the queen of the Underworld. Ceres tried to rescue her, but Pluto only allowed her to share part of her time in the Underworld and another on Earth.
The “Eleusinian Mysteries” were based on this myth and took place twice a year: The Lesser Mysteries in March and the Greater Mysteries in September. One of the objectives was to instruct initiates in the cult of the goddess, initiates whom they called “misthai”. One of the essential rules of these cults was secrecy […], and no one could reveal what happened there. The Mysteries had four officiating ministers, uone of whom was called the Assistant to the altar, whose garments represented the moon. These initiation ceremonies were taken to Rome, celebrated by women dressed in white, with garlands on their heads.
In this portrayal, one may perceive a homage to Ceres integrated into one of these ceremonies, where the lute – in the hands of the ocean nymph – fulfils a cultural function. One of the other two female figures may be assumed to be Proserpina herself – with a basket of flowers in her hands, evoking the scene of her abduction – while the other – on her knees – seems to offer a garland to a male figure. The latter – who holds a thurible – may be associated with the Assistant of the altar. Usually, the thurible is used, still today, to burn incense and spread the aromatic smoke thus released. Incense, in its Latin etymology (incensum), means “burned”. It is used in religious and purification rites, in this case, in homage to the goddess.
The Greeks and, later and similarly, the Romans, explained nature through their rich mythology, deifying everything that surrounds it and makes it live. In this myth of Ceres and Proserpina, one may extract the explanation for the fertility or renewal of nature through the periods in which the goddess remained on the surface or in the depths: a creative allegory for the infertile period (Autumn and Winter) and for the rebirth of nature (Spring and Summer). In the mythological detail in which Proserpina eats one or more grains of a pomegranate, which would prevent her from returning to Earth and which she only managed through the intervention of Pluto, one may also associate with the seeds that are buried, germinate and fructify in Spring and Summer.
[…]
The lute, plucked by one of the ocean nymphs, is the instrument already in its last phase of evolution, with six double strings (six orders). The position of the player’s hand shows that the painter knew the instrument well, since the strings pressed by the fingers suggest an intentional position (chord). One could even know what sounds resulted, except that the tuning of the instrument was never standardized, for because the sizes varied and, consequently, so did the tunings.
[…]
In the context of this painting, the function of the lute is included in the homage to the goddess and the resulting sound may be assumed to be intimate, of spiritual elevation.»
Eduardo Magalhães
“Flora in the Palace’s Collections”
«From the first decades of the 17th century in Europe, in the countries of northern and central Europe, the thematic emancipation of flower painting in vases or still-lifes is undoubtedly due to the new knowledge in the field of botany and in the interest that the new floral species disseminated aroused in the midst of erudite European society.
[…]
[On] the margins of the floristic culture that was expanding through the gardens of the aristocracy or of the wealthy classes, orders for paintings proliferated which, naturalistically, reflected this new world of exotics and which mirrored, not only the economic capacity, but also the erudition of symbolic values, in force since Antiquity, alongside the knowledge of the novelties that the patron possessed.
[…]
[This piece] is a portrayal of this cultural environment in the period, and it is attributed to Dirck van Baburen (c.1595-1624), a painter associated to the circle of artists residing in Utrecht.
[…]
Even before th[e] grammar of scientific illustration was transposed to most still-lifes known – by artists such as Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert II – the spring flowers that the young people take to the festivities of A Offering to Ceres […] reflect this vigorous and delicate naturalism that permeates the engravings of miniature gardens by Crispin de Passe and that van Buren captured.
In the painting, roses also catch the eye. To the half dozen damascene roses, is added the vibrant and cheerful yellow of a rose – Rosa foetida (Herrm.), also known as Rosa lutea (Mill.) or Persian Yellow Rose, described for the first time in the herbarium 1532-53 by Gherardo Cibo, where the most complete information on roses cultivated in the Renaissance may be found. Hypothetically, it could have been introduced into the gardens of Andalusia in the 13th century, but it was only in 1583 that we find reliable knowledge of its introduction in Vienna, Austria, through the description of the botanist Clusius. At the time, it was the only yellow rose known and, therefore, it generated enormous interest.»
Sasha Assis Lima
