Pluto and Proserpina

The muscular figure of Pluto sits beside his two-pronged bident, gazing up at Proserpina as she rests her arm upon him. Behind them, the three heads of Cerberus peer out from the shadows of a tree, while the background reveals the smoke and flames of a subterranean city. The engraving utilizes the twisting, elongated proportions and high-contrast shading characteristic of the Haarlem Mannerists.

This work represents the 'Tertia Regna' (Third Kingdom) or the element of Earth within a series on the tripartite division of the cosmos. In the Neoplatonic tradition, the myth of Proserpina was interpreted as an allegory for the descent of the soul into the material realm and its eventual return, a theme central to the Eleusinian Mysteries.