Proserpina

Proserpina (minor planet designation: 26 Proserpina) is a main-belt asteroid discovered by German astronomer R. Luther on May 5, 1853. It is named after the Roman goddess Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres and the Queen of the Underworld. Another main-belt asteroid, 399 Persephone, discovered in 1895, is named after her Greek counterpart. Its historical symbol was a star inside a pomegranate; it is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1CECD 𜻍 ().

Proserpine (also Proserpina or Persephone) is an oil painting on canvas by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1874 and now in Tate Britain. Rossetti began work on the painting in 1871 and painted at least eight separate versions, the last only completed in 1882, the year of his death. Early versions were promised to Charles Augustus Howell. The painting discussed in this article is the so-called seventh version commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland, now at the Tate Gallery, with the very similar final version now at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.