Fauna, Goddess of Creation, from the Goddesses of the Greeks and Romans series (N188) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. 1889

This is an chromolithograph of Fauna, the Goddess of Creation, made by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. Fauna is adorned with a headdress made from the pelt of a wild animal, and raises aloft a bunch of grapes. The grapes symbolize fertility, abundance, and the gifts of the earth, deeply rooted in Dionysian rites and the orgiastic celebrations of nature's bounty. This motif hearkens back to ancient rituals honoring the life-giving forces of nature. Consider the Bacchantes in Pompeian frescoes, frenzied women dancing with grapes and animal skins, embodiments of untamed, ecstatic energy. The collective memory of such imagery persists, surfacing in art across centuries, each time slightly altered, yet retaining a primal connection to our subconscious understanding of nature's power. This potent image speaks to the enduring human fascination with the wild, the fertile, and the divine feminine.