Ceres and Pan

Ceres, the goddess of grain and the seasons, and Pan, the god of herds and wild country, are not paired in any ancient text, so this meeting is an invention. She holds the horn of plenty, he leans across with a basket, and the canvas fills up with what a year produces. Figs, cherries, artichokes, chestnuts, acorns, a melon, a watermelon. The Prado's author line gives the picture to Frans Snyders and to the workshop of Rubens, the produce to one hand and the figures to the other, and dates it around 1620. It came to Madrid among 26 paintings sent over from Flanders to furnish the queen's new tower in the Alcázar. By the inventory of 1636 the king had moved them downstairs, into the big room where he dined in the cool summer quarters. Who ordered the shipment is still unknown, though a payment authorised by Queen Isabel de Borbón in 1623 is on record.