Persephone: Rossetti Tribute

This image is part of my long-term "Visions" project: an ongoing exploration of images inspired by Victorian classicism and the pre-Raphaelites; poetry, fairy tales, folk lore and fantasy. It is a tribute to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "Persephone", and features the lovely as the young woman forced to six months of each year as Queen of the Underworld, because she ate six (or one or four, depending on the version of the story you read--I live in Boston, where winter is most DEFINITELY six months long!) pomegranate seeds while there.

In Rossetti's version, I've always assumed that she's already eaten the seeds...in my version, I'm not sure if she has, and has just found out what this has doomed her to--or if she is starving, and is being pressed to eat some of the tempting fruit in her hand, and all around her. Either way, I loved the way *Cinniuint captured the mental anguish of hapless young woman.

This shoot was my second shoot with someone I've met on dA. I stumbled on *Cinniuint about a year ago, and was very taken with her pre-Raphaelite looks, and instantly imagined her in any one of a number of famous Rossetti paintings. I saw that she was from Holland, but jokingly wrote her that if she was ever in Boston, she should pose for me...and would you believe it? It turned out that she had plans to visit Boston this winter!

She brought along her own costume (a beautiful green elven gown) and her own seamstress (the talented and charming , and we met for an all-day shoot, on, appropriately enough, the last day of the year. I had picked up 7ish yards of fabric I thought would make a good gown,a couple of days before--and with the *fabulous* help of *nightshade13, we fashioned a creditable pre-Raphaelite gown by dint of a lot of draping and a whole lot of safety pins. A week later, I continue to be quite chuffed with the results!

I have several painterly versions of this image, as well--but I haven't yet managed to figure out which version I like best, so for now, you'll have to make do with the straight image. Enjoy!