Cleveland Museum of Art

Suite of Vases: Plate 14

Date

1746

Medium

etching

Culture

France, 18th century

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Jacques François Joseph Saly created an etched suite of 30 imaginary vase designs while studying in Rome. Throughout the series, he let his skill and imagination run wild on the theme of bacchants by inventively incorporating animals, satyrs, and maenads—as well as faces and grotesques (fantastic figures and beasts)—into various designs. Published in Paris, the series nourished an appetite for the revival of mythological and classical elements in decorative arts, and may have also inspired Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s suite of bacchanalia images. The voluptuous two-tailed mermaid figure in the center of this design may be a nereid. As the undine daughters of Neptune, nereids were often part of Bacchus's entourage in classical mythology.

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