Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The lithograph shows Triptolemus in his chariot, holding two stems of wheat and staff. The chariot has wings, and two snakes beneath it. It reproduces the decoration of a red-figure cylix in the Museo Gregoriano, Rome. The print was plate XLVI in the third volume of Lenormant and de Witte's "Elite des monuments céramographiques", published in 1858. It was presumably taken from Ruskin's copy of the work now preserved in the Ruskin Library (inventory no. 1996B2621), which is missing many of its plates.

The print was first catalogued by Ruskin in 1871, when it appeared as no. 126 in the Educational Series, entitled "The Dragon of Triptolemus", placed in Case VIII, "Elementary Zoology". It was framed together with a small sketch by Ruskin of the head of Triptolemus from another Greek ceramic. It remained in the same position, although renumbered as no. 176, in the 1874 catalogue of the series, but does not appear in Ruskin's 1878 reorganisation of the series.

In his notes on the Educational Series, Ruskin provided a list associating different types of plant with ancient Greek mythological figures. Referring to this frame, he described how the wings on Triptolemus's chariot symbolised the rain.