Copy of a Greek relief of ca. 425–400 B.C. attributed to Kallimachos
Maenads were mythical women inspired by the god of wine, Dionysos, to abandon their homes and families and roam the mountains and forests, singing and dancing in a state of ecstatic frenzy. This figure, wearing an ivy wreath and carrying a thyrsos (fennel stalk) bedecked with ivy leaves and berries, moves forward, trancelike, her drapery swirling about her. She was copied from a famous relief of dancing maenads dated to the late fifth century B.C., when Euripides portrayed the manic devotées of Dionysos in his play the Bacchae.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Marble relief with a dancing maenad
Artist:Adaptation of work attributed to Kallimachos
Period:Early Imperial, Augustan
Date:ca. 27 BCE–14 CE
Culture:Roman
Medium:Marble, Pentelic
Dimensions:H. 56 5/16 in. (143 cm)
Classification:Stone Sculpture
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1935
Object Number:35.11.3
[Until 1935, with Alfredo Barsanti, Rome]; acquired in 1935, purchased from A. Barsanti.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1936. "A Relief of a Maenad." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31(1): pp. 1, 9–12.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1949. "The Classical Contribution to Western Civilization." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 7(8): p. 216.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1950. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, 3rd edn. pp. 243, 563, fig. 638, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 139, 276–77, pls. 116b, 117b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1954. Catalogue of Greek Sculptures. no. 58, pp. 39–40, pls. 50, 51a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries. New York: Dutton.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. pp. 406, 605, pl. 130b, Cambridge, England.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1987. Greece and Rome. no. 50, p. 69, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Touchette, Lori-Ann. 1995. The Dancing Maenad Reliefs: Continuity and Change in Roman Copies, Bulletin Supplement, Vol. 62. no. 27, pp. 75–76, pl. 20b, London: Institute Of Classical Studies.
Onians, John. 1999. Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome. p. 160, fig. 127, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Milleker, Elizabeth J. 2003. Light on Stone: Greek and Roman Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Photographic Essay. p. 98, pls. 23–25, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 146, pp. 133, 433, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Koehl, Robert. 2013. Amilla. The Quest for Excellence. Studies Presented to Guenter Kopcke in Celebration of His 75th Birthday pp. 410, 412, 29.1, Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.
Zanker, Paul, Seán Hemingway, Christopher S. Lightfoot, and Joan R. Mertens. 2019. Roman Art : A Guide through the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Collection. no. 10, p. 53, New York: Scala Publishers.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. pp. 160, 269, New York: Phaidon Press.
Hemingway, Seán. 2021. How to Read Greek Sculpture. no. 21, pp. 32, 102–103, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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