Bacchanal
1615–42
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 3 1/4 x 9 15/16 in. (8.2 x 25.2cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Grace M. Pugh, 1985
Accession Number
1986.1180.503
Tags
Art Historical Context
Pierre Brebiette's *Bacchanal*, an etching created between 1615 and1642, captures the wild exuberance of a mythological revelry honoring Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. This intimate sheet, measuring just 3¼ x 9⅞ inches, teems with dynamic figures—bacchantes (frenzied female followers), men, women, and—in a chaotic dance of ecstasy and abandon. The horizontal format draws viewers into the frenzy, evoking the Dionysian spirit central to classical mythology and Renaissance art traditions. As a master of etching, Brebiette employed a meticulous printmaking technique, biting lines into a metal pl...
About the Artist
Pierre Brebiette · 1598–1642
Pierre Brébiette (c. 1598–c. 1642) was a French painter and etcher whose elegant, sensuous treatment of classical mythology and allegory earned him a significant reputation in early seventeenth-century Paris. Born in Mantes-sur-Seine, Brébiette traveled to Italy as a young man and lived and worked in Rome from around 1617 to approximately 1625, absorbing the influences of ancient sculpture, Renais...