Bronze group of Pluto, King of the Underworld, abducting the nymph Proserpina in an elaborate chariot. On a shaped, naturalistic base with blasted tree stumps, the fountain nymph Cyane reaches up in vain to save Proserpina.

Proserpina was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. Ovid relates (Metamorphoses V: 385-424) how Cupid had fired an arrow at Pluto to make him fall in love. Emerging from his underground realm, Pluto spied Proserpina (his niece) gathering flowers with her companions. She was carried off to the Underworld to become Queen. The nymph Cyane, helpless to prevent the abduction, eventually dissolved into a pool of her own tears.

The composition of this anonymous bronze closely follows Charles de La Fosse's painting of the subject (1673), and it was later used as the basis of a relief on the circular pedestal of Francois Girardon's marble group (1684-99) of the same subject for the Parterre d'Eau at Versailles, However the same composition was also used earlier in the century by Flemish and German artists.

The shape of the bronze base suggests that the group was intended to be seen from all sides, perhaps as the centrepiece of a table.

Exhibition catalogue 'Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution' (Paris, New York and Los Angeles, 2008-9), no. 102