Dionysian Relief

Roman art

This relief was well-known at the end of the fifteenth century and continued to catch the interest of artists, as documented by numerous drawings made between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and various copies and depictions. At the end of the seventeenth century, it was used to decorate the central fountain in the garden of the Palazzo in Campo Marzio, and then it was moved to the grounds of the Villa di Porta Pinciana, after which it was restored and put in display in the Casino in 1826. Inserted in a modern frame, the panel was originally either part of a statue base or a larger relief.

It depicts two groups that have been arbitrarily juxtaposed. On the left, a young satyr wearing a panther skin wrapped around his left arm is moving to the right, portrayed in the act of taking a bunch of grapes from an Eros riding a goat that is backing away, frightened. The original iconography, in which the satyr was raising a cymbal with his right hand to attract the attention of the Eros, was altered by a nineteenth-century restoration. On the right, Pan, the god of the countryside and flocks, is shown holding an offering of the head of a goat in the direction of a flame on an altar and a herm of a bearded deity.

Object details

Commentary

This relief was, along with other panels in the Salon, inv.  XXXVI, VIIIL and Room II, inv. IIIC, originally part of a single monument, which Christian Hülsen argued was a rectangular base measuring 220 cm x 80 cm x 60 cm (Hülsen 1913), and other scholars believe was a continuous frieze measuring seven metres long that included another relief (Herdejürgen 1997). The four reliefs were well known at the end of the fifteenth century and continued to catch the interest of artists, as documented by numerous drawings made between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. These drawings also provide important information for reconstructing the original iconography, prior to the nineteenth-century reassembly (Pray Bober, Rubinstein 1986). The monument’s original location is unknown, but scholars agree that the reliefs were later in an easily accessible public space, possibly a church, considering their popularity in the Renaissance.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the present relief was used to decorate the central fountain on the grounds of the palazzo in Campo Marzio, serving as a base for a colossal statue of a satyr hosted in the central niche, as documented by an engraving made by Venturini in the second half of the seventeenth century (Falda 1691, pl. 11). The reliefs were later moved to the grounds of the Villa di Porta Pinciana, where they remained until 1826 and the installation of the new collection in the Casino, which had been stripped by the massive sale to Napoleon Bonaparte. At that time, Evasio Gozzani arranged for it to be restored by Massimiliano Laboureur or Antonio D’Este.

This panel, which is inserted in a modern frame, depicts two groups that were arbitrarily juxtaposed by the nineteenth-century restorer. On the left, a young satyr wearing a pardalide (panther skin) wrapped around his left arm moves to the right, portrayed in the act of taking a bunch of grapes from an Eros riding a goat that is moving away, frightened. The Renaissance drawings document a different scene, however: in them, the right arm of the satyr is not bent; it is holding a cymbal in the air, which the Eros is turning to look at. On the right, Pan, the god of the countryside and flocks, is portrayed with a strong chin, two long horns, a hairy body and legs like a goat. He is shown holding an offering of the head of a goat in the direction of a flame on an altar, behind which stands a herm of a bearded divinity that was added by the modern restorer who did not, however, add back in the body of the goat at the feet of the god. The first group, which is completed by the fragment in Room II, IIIC, could have been part of the long side of the monument, replicated, with variants, on the opposite side (Salone, XXXVI; VIIIL).

The second group, also separated by a break reassembled by a modern restorer, was probably part of a short side. It, too, was replicated on the other short side in a mirror image (Salone, inv. XXXVI). Some scholars have proposed adding a fifth relief, now lost but attested in Venturini’s engraving, that depicts two satyrs trying to seduce a sleeping nymph. If this interpretation is correct, the monument would not have been a base but rather a continuous frieze measuring seven metres long, bookended by the two groups of Pan making a sacrifice (Herdejürgen 1997).

During the Hellenistic period, the Dionysian thiasus, with its symbolic elements and natural setting, became an especially popular theme for various supports, including puteals, sarcophagi, altars and statue bases, and was sometimes even used to decorate outdoor spaces, like gardens. It quickly turned into a genre subject and allusion to the joy of the dance-filled celebrations held in preparation of the sacrificial ritual and the earthly pleasure offered by Dionysus.

Based on stylistic analysis of the finely carved bodies and faces as well as the attention paid to describing the setting, the Borghese relief is universally agreed to date to the first half of the first century BCE, tracing back to a late-Hellenistic model inspired by late-Classical art.

Jessica Clementi