Bacchanal with Silenus
1475/80
Medium
Engraving on laid paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 31.2 × 44.3 cm (12 5/16 × 17 1/2 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
4278
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Andrea Mantegna’s adoption of ancient Roman motifs contributed to their prominence during the Italian Renaissance, especially when translated into widely circulating and frequently copied engravings. Mantegna’s oblong bacchanalian subjects particularly extol the wonders of the god of wine as well as the excesses of his entourage. Indeed, in this print of a procession-like grouping of figures, Dionysos’s portly, inebriated sidekick Silenos receives mock preferential treatment as he is lifted by s...
About the Artist
Andrea Mantegna · 1431–1506
Andrea Mantegna was born around 1431 near Padua, in the Venetian Republic, the son of a carpenter. At approximately age eleven he was taken into the workshop of the Paduan painter and antiquities collector Francesco Squarcione, who enrolled him as a guild member and immersed him in the study of Roman sculpture and classical Latin. Though Mantegna later claimed that Squarcione had exploited his lab...