Skip to main content
×
Recherche infructueuse

Bacchanalian procession with Silenus, bacchant and maenads (Caylus, Antiquités romaines, pl. 56.2)

Description

"The four bas-reliefs, of white marble, which fill these two Planks, are of equal height, i.e. one foot eight lines; it is to be presumed that they formerly decorated the same place, since representing subjects of the same kind, they are by the same hand. The large ones are each two feet four lines long, & the other two eighteen inches nine lines.
I cannot sçavoir where they were found, nor how they came to Paris. What I have been able to discover is that they belonged to Sieur Jacquelin, Trésorier des Bâtimens, & that they were placed in his house, rue Michel-le-comte. He apparently knew their merit and that of this type of decoration, for he had had four other Bas-reliefs made, in the same proportions, by Sarrazin, one of our good & ancient Sculptors, who executed them around the year 1630, shortly after his arrival in Paris. This artist was all the more accomplished, as he was working in competition with the antique, and for a financier. It will be easy at least to judge their composition, for they have been engraved..." (Caylus, Recueil d'antiquités égyptiennes, étrusques, grecques et romaines, tome III, p. 217)

Technical Data

Notice #024743

Image HD

Image editing :
Image web
Image Origin :
Bibliothèque numérique Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France (https://gallica.bnf.fr)