Dionysos
Artist/Culture
Antioch
Date1st Century
Mediumwhite marble, discolored and lime encrusted
Dimensions47 cm (18 1/2 in.)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineExcavation of Antioch and Vicinity funded by the bequests of the Reverend Dr. Austin S. Garver and Sarah C. Garver
Terms
Object number1940.10
DescriptionHead missing, right hand broken; vine and clusters of grapes at left side; The headless statuette represents the god Dionysos half draped and leaning on a trunk entwined with vines and grape clusters. Appropriately, the god of wine holds a bunch of grapes in his left hand; the attachment for the object in his right hand, probably a drinking cup or kantharos, is partially preserved. The drapery covers his lower body and wraps around his back and falls over his left shoulder. There is a trace of his long locks on the right shoulder. Both his hands and his feet are broken off. The head seems to have been attached with a dowel. The piece is discolored with incrustations on the front because it was originally face up during burial, so that precipitation of calcareous material occurred predominantly on this surface. There are remains of a lime-based white ground layer over the whole piece, as well as isolated traces of iron-red pigment.The type of the leaning Dionysos belongs to a popular series reproduced by Roman sculptors for household decoration from a Hellenistic original attributed to Praxiteles. Among the many copies, a torso in the Hermitage Museum and one in the Corinth Museum are especially close to the Worcester Dionysos (*1).
The Worcester Dionysos was found buried in the foundations of a late pool with twelve other fragments of sculpture in the House of Menander at Daphne. The other pieces in the cache include fragments of male and female statuettes that might have represented satyrs, maenads, and perhaps a Silenos and a Priapos (*2). This find of statuary corresponds to the ensembles of domestic sculpture in Campanian houses which include Dionysiac themes. For example, among the sculptures found in the garden of the House of Marcus Lucretius are a striding satyr, several Dionysiac/Bacchic herms, and a Silenos (*3). Probably, this statuette of Dionysos adorned one of the niches in the nymphaea of the House of Menander. (Kondoleon, 2000)
*1. For these two examples, see Gasparri, Carlo. "Dionysos" LIMC III, no. 1 (Munich 1986): 436, nos. 126b and 126c respectively, and for a listing of the others in the series, ibid., 434-37, nos. 117-28.
*2. For the list of fragments with some suggested identifications, see Stillwell, Richard. Antioch-on-the Orontes III: The Excavations of 1937-1939. Princeton 1941: 119-21, nos. 285-97.
*3. For inventory of finds in the garden see Dwyer, Eugene. Pompeian Domestic Sculpture: A Study of Five Pompeian Houses and Their Contents. Rome 1982: 38-48.
ProvenanceAntioch Excavation, 1937-39 - House of Menander, Daphne
On View
Not on view
