Ceres 1852 - 1898

Leopold Löwenstam made this print, “Ceres,” sometime in the late 19th century. It shows the Roman goddess of agriculture, identifiable by her crown of wheat. She presides over the harvest, attended by a cherubic helper, and the abundance of the land is symbolized by the overflowing cornucopia in her arm. Löwenstam was a printmaker who lived and worked in London at a time when Britain's agricultural economy was declining. A flood of cheap American grain was undercutting domestic production. The goddess Ceres was a figure increasingly out of step with the times. We should ask whether a classically-trained artist like Löwenstam was making a conscious comment on this situation. Was he perhaps critiquing this economic shift, or idealizing a bygone era? To investigate such questions, art historians consult a wide range of sources, including economic data, agricultural reports, and exhibition reviews to understand the artwork's place in its specific time and location.