Silenus at the Wine Vat
Jusepe de Ribera
1628
- Medium
- Etching in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Plate: 27.5 × 35.2 cm (10 7/8 × 13 7/8 in.); Sheet: 28.2 × 35.6 cm (11 1/8 × 14 1/16 in.)
- Genre
- etching
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
printprints and drawingetchingpaper (fiber product)
About
The Spanish Baroque artist Ribera may have known several of the other bacchanal prints on view nearby, including those by Andrea Mantegna (1956.1010 and .1011); this earthy depiction of Dionysos’s fleshy, frequently inebriated follower closely resembles the scene within the grape-arbored roundel of Annibale Carracci’s Tazza Farnese (1989.172). Pan, with his pipes set aside, crowns Silenos with a wreath of grapevines, tendrils of which also cover his pubic area. Children have passed out from the wine fumes, and Apollo looks on derisively as a donkey seemingly lifts its head in mirth at the proceedings.
