Bacchus and Drunken Silenus—The Dream of Silenus
Frans van den Wyngaerde
1635–1640
- Medium
- Etching and engraving in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image: 32.6 × 42.9 cm (12 7/8 × 16 15/16 in.); Plate: 34.6 × 44 cm (13 5/8 × 17 3/8 in.); Sheet: 42.2 × 53.2 cm (16 5/8 × 21 in.)
- Genre
- Etching
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
printprints and drawingetchingpaperpaper (fiber product)
About
This etching after a Rubens painting of 1610/15 (Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna) boasts an opulent display of half-filled and drained drinking vessels, a passed-out Silenos and an unfazed Dionysos, who continues sipping from the basin into which his attendant is squeezing grapes. The drunken scene suggests a Greek symposium, despite the outdoor setting and lack of couches. Fascinated by antiquity, Rubens built a Pantheon-like museum complete with an oculus at his Antwerp home. It housed 90 ancient sculptures, including several satyr heads and torsos, which he acquired en masse in 1618 in trade for paintings and tapestries.
