2-970-128 - /Heritage Images

"Luna in her Car", from "The Winter's Tale", at the Princess' Theatre, 1856. London stage production by Charles Kean. 'The chaste Moon and her attendant stars are here personified, and supposed to be sinking before the car of Phoebus, which is about to arise with all its morning glories....Luna, or rather Selene, according to the Greeks, appears in her chariot sinking into the sea. The stars personified follow her in her descent...The Stars are taken from a painted vase in the Musee Blacas, at Paris; other figures composed from bas-relief representations of the Moon visiting Endymion. The chariot of Selene is drawn by white oxen. In the centre beneath a female figure reclines, holding a cornucopia with fruits and flowers, and the share of a plough, symbolising the fertile Earth'. From "Illustrated London News", 1856.