Zaida Ben-Yusuf : The odor of pomegranates. Platinum print.

Zaida Ben-Yusuf (1869-1933) was a leader in the art of photographic portraiture at the turn of the 20th century.
‘The Odor of Pomegranates’ represents her effort to use photography to explore a larger theme: the seductiveness and potential danger of something desirous.
The pomegranate figures prominently in the mythological story of Persephone, whose act of eating one given to her by Hades bound her for part of the year in the underworld over which Hades reigned. Ben-Yusuf depicts her Persephone-like figure contemplating the fruit before her. Its “odor” relates not to its smell, but rather the tantalizing expectation that precedes the act of consuming it.

Prints and Photographs Division, US Library of Congress.