Wednesday, April 04, 2018

 

Personal Devotion to Dionysus

Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, tr. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), p. 60 (description of fig. 46):
Old man with ivy wreath and kantharos at a Dionysiac feast. Through the portrait features the image takes on the character of personal devotion to Dionysus. Ca. 50 B.C.
Figure 46 shows Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, accession number 00.311 (image here from the Museum's web site):


Id., p. 62:
On one relief, Dionysus and his rowdy thiasos enter the house of a devotée to the music of the flute (fig. 49). We are reminded immediately of Antony's entry into Ephesus. The drunken god supports himself on a little satyr, while another hurries to take off his shoes. Next to the worshipper, who warmly greets the god, reclines a woman on a kline, admiring the miraculous epiphany. Masks lying at the foot of the couch allude to the world of the theater.
Figure 49 shows Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 6713 (image here from Wikipedia):




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