The Greek imagination was populated with a number of strange creatures. When their thoughts turned to wine, Greeks pictured mischievous young satyrs, the half- human, half-horse creatures who frolicked, danced, and chased hapless maenads. Satyrs symbolized suppressed hedonistic desires that were unleashed by the intoxicating elixir of the wine god Dionysos, known to the Romans as Bacchus. These creatures are mature satyrs, or silenoi (sing. silenos), and they once served as decorative elements for a type of couch on which elite, well-to-do Romans reclined at lavish banquets. Because wine was served at these festive events, creatures from Dionysos’s entourage were popular subjects for such furniture attachments.
Each object is made of two pieces that were cast separately and fastened together. The proper right arm of the left silenos is lost, but the right one retains his separately made left arm. It and the wineskin slung over the corresponding shoulder were cast as one piece. The sclerae, or whites of their eyes, are silver, as are their teeth; furthermore, their lips were once inlaid with copper. Their remarkably animated facial expressions, with their furrowed brows and slightly parted lips, can be read as conveying pathos, perplexity, or perhaps inebriated befuddlement.
Date
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Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report: 1997–98 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), p. 12.
Art Institute of Chicago, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), p. 73 (ill., 1997.554.2).
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 33, 39.
Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New York: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 76–77; 111–112, cat. 15 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Art Institute of Chicago, 2013), p. 71 (ill.).
John Dorfman, “Imprints of Ecstasy,” in Art and Antiques (Winter 2015–16), p. 67 (ill., 1997.554.1).
John Twilley, “Cat. 139 Attachment Depicting the Bust of a Silenos: Technical Report,” in Roman Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2016).
Katharine A. Raff, “Cats. 139-140 Attachment Depicting Busts of Silenoi: Curatorial Entry,” in Roman Art at the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2016).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Case for Wine: From King Tut to Today, July 11–September 20, 2009, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 156, 1998 - July 11, 2009 and September 20, 2009- February 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Dionysos Unmasked: Ancient Sculpture and Early Prints, July 31, 2015–February 15, 2016, no cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - July 9, 2015 and March 3, 2016 - Jan. 20, 2023.
Robert Hecht (1919–2012), New York, by 1957 [this and the following according to correspondence from Cornelius Vermeule III, dated 1997; copy in curatorial object file]; sold through Hesperia Fine Arts, to a private collection, Philadelphia; with Roberth Hecht, New York; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997.
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