The Mocking of Ceres (1610): Art, History and Details

The Mocking of Ceres (1610) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hendrik Goudt (Dutch, 1583–1648); Adam Elsheimer (German, 1578-1610).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This scene depicts Ceres, the Roman goddess of summer and agriculture, drinking water as she searches for her kidnapped daughter, Proserpina. A boy mocks her at left. Hendrick Goudt made several engravings meant to reproduce the style of small, dark paintings of the period. Here, the plate is almost entirely covered with lines that shift in direction or density to create textures and forms. This type of dark composition influenced printmakers like Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch 1606–1669), who adapted the dark manner to etching.

Object facts

• Title: The Mocking of Ceres
• Date: 1610
• Creator attribution: Hendrik Goudt (Dutch, 1583–1648); Adam Elsheimer (German, 1578-1610)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Print
• Technique: engraving
• Dimensions: Image: 29.2 x 23.7 cm (11 1/2 x 9 5/16 in.); Sheet: 32 x 24.2 cm (12 5/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
• Collection: PR - Engraving
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1981.23

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1981.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 2 (February 1982): 39–82.
• Watkins, Catherine Bailey. Rembrandt's 1654 Life of Christ Prints: Experimentation, Tradition, and the Question of Series. 2011.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.