Bacchanal with a Wine Vat

Andrea Mantegna was an artist with a deep interest in antiquity, and much of his work resembled Greco-Roman sculpture, which he translated into widely circulating and frequently copied engravings. This is the left half of a pair of prints; the adjoining print Bacchanal with Silenos (1956.1010) is also in the Art Institute’s collection. Mantegna’s frieze-shaped bacchanalian subjects portray the god of wine and his drunken revelers. Dionysos may be the standing youth on the left, who is being crowned with a wreath of grape leaves. His noble bearing and contrapposto stance link him particularly to ancient sculptures.