The Wedding Feast of Bacchus and Ariadne
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and gray wash, heightened with white, over red chalk, on beige paper
Dimensions
7 5/8 x 22 5/8 in. (19.3 x 57.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1964
Accession Number
64.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the grand tradition of French Baroque art, *The Wedding Feast of Bac and Ariadne* (ca. 1709) is a collaborative drawing by Guy Louis Vernansal the Elder and Charles Brun, two masters of the era. It captures the joyous mythological union of the wine god Bacchus (Dionysus) and Ariadne, the Cretan princess he rescued after her abandonment by Theseus.st a lavish feast, figures revel in classical abandon, with tags highlighting female nudes that evoke sensuality and divine revelry—hallmarks of 17th- and early 18th-century depictions of antiquity. Executed in pen and brown ink with brush and gra...