Enlèvement de Proserpine par Pluton, Marble sculpture in Colonnade Grove, Versailles, France

Enlèvement de Proserpine par Pluton is a white marble group by François Girardon, completed around 1696 and now kept in the Orangery of the Château de Versailles. A bearded Pluto grips a twisting Proserpina above him while the bearded Cyane crouches below on hands and knees, bearing the group's weight. Carved cloth swathes the three bodies, and the spiral composition turns so no single viewpoint shows all three faces. A 1990 araldite cast replaced the original outdoors.

In 1675 Louis XIV commissioned the group from François Girardon as part of the Grande Commande, a set of eight abductions for the park of Versailles. The project was cancelled in 1683 and the statues dispersed; Girardon's marble, finished around 1696, cost 15,000 livres. Transported from Paris in August 1696 with fifty horses, two of which died on the way, it was first set at the end of the Allée royale, on the half-moon of the Apollo basin parterre.

Girardon drew on two passages of Book V of Ovid's Metamorphoses: the abduction itself and the vain resistance of the nymph Cyane, who appears below Pluto. The pedestal, carved by Girardon with Robert Le Lorrain, shows three successive scenes — Proserpina picking flowers with her nymphs, Pluto dragging her toward the Underworld, and Ceres on her chariot searching for her daughter — so visitors walk around it to follow the story.

The marble on view is an araldite cast placed in 1990 where the original stood; the original is now indoors in the Orangery, beside Bernini's equestrian Louis XIV reworked by Girardon. Walk the full circuit of the group: the three faces are set at different angles, so no single viewpoint shows all three at once.

The pedestal is also by Girardon, with Robert Le Lorrain, and cost 3,250 livres. Its three successive reliefs — Proserpina gathering flowers, Pluto dragging her to the Underworld, Ceres on her chariot — are meant to be read by walking around it. In the marble, Pluto's fingers press into the girl's flesh and his veins stand out.