The Rape of Proserpine, design for the staircase of Devonshire House, London
Louis Laguerre
ca. 1704
Louis Laguerre, a French painter who worked with Charles Le Brun at Versailles, moved to London in about 1684 and soon enjoyed the patronage of the most exalted families in Britain, including the Cavendish family. This sketch is an unexecuted proposal for decorating a staircase in the London town house (since demolished) of the first Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish. The walls, imagined as a fictive tapestry, represent Proserpine’s (Persephone’s) abduction by Pluto, the god of the underworld, while a feast of the gods fills the ceiling. Illusionistic murals were the preeminent form of history painting at the turn of the eighteenth century, decorating interior spaces in the homes of the elite, in London town houses and country estates alike.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0