Cleveland Museum of Art

Bacchanal

Pietro da Cortona

Date

mid-1600s

Medium

pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over black chalk, heightened with white gouache; incised, framing lines in brown ink over traces of black chalk

Culture

Italy, 17th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Here, a bacchanalia is in full swing with its required cast of characters: Bacchus, Roman god of wine, at right; Silenus, atop the wine barrel, always ready for another glass; and numerous bacchants consisting of maenads, satyrs, musicians, children, and a goat, all within an Italian landscape. This drawing may have been a design for a fresco or painting. Depictions of bacchanalia were often meant for dining spaces, where the elite of society could playfully mirror the revelries portrayed in their own enjoyment of food and wine. Goats were commonly associated with sinful behavior, making them a common element in Bacchic scenes.

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