Ceres met paarden 1820

This is Pierre-Nicolas Beauvallet's drawing of Ceres with horses. Beauvallet lived through the French Revolution, and his work reflects the period's complex negotiation with classical antiquity. Here, Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, fertility, and motherhood, is depicted with her horses, and also appears as sculpture, perhaps adorning a classical frieze. The goddess embodied the era's ideals of abundance, domesticity, and civic virtue. The drawing is an example of the period's attempt to create a visual language that spoke to both the values of the Enlightenment and a yearning for social order and stability. It’s interesting how Beauvallet tries to recast traditional representations of power and femininity, in a world undergoing radical change. Though rendered in a classical style, there’s a subversive quality to the work as it exists on the page. It is a moment to reflect on the enduring power of myth and its intersection with the lived realities of historical transformation.