Art Institute of Chicago

Bacchanal

Giulio Carpioni

Date

1633/78

Medium

Etching on ivory laid paper

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The 18th-century author P. A. Orlandi once described Carpioni’s mythological etchings as “perfect conceptions, such as dreams, sacrifices, bacchanals, triumphs, dances of ‘putti,’ the most attractive caprices and fantasies that a painter, inclined to work on a small scale, has ever conceived.” This bacchanal of dwarf-like humans and shaggy satyr youths becomes more enigmatic with the addition of the figures at right. The naked man lounges in the pose of a statue of a river god, but his placement before an ancient altar relief, with a glimpse of a covered basket, implies that one of the ritual mysteries is taking place in conjunction with the wine consumption.

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