British Museum <London> / Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities [Hrsg.]: Græco-roman sculptures (London, 1874)

FIRST GR^iCO-ROMAN ROOM.

On the south side of this room are the following sculp-
tures, beginning from the south-eastern angle:—
(109.) Satyr playing with the Infant Bacchus
(Dionysos).—The right arm with the pgdtun which it holds,
both feet, and certain accessories, are restored.
The Satyr is represented standing on his toes, and
turning towards the child, whom he supports on his left
hand. In a goat's shin suspended from his left shoulder
are grapes and other fruits, to which the infant god is
helping himself, holding in his left hand a hunch of
grapes. The left arm of the Satyr, together with the mass
of objects resting on it, is supported by a trunk of a tree,
from which hangs a pair of cymbals. At the foot of the
tree is a panther, looking up at the Satyr, and resting the
right fore-paw on a goat's head. The Satyr is crowned
with pine. The infant is crowned with ivy.
The motive of this group is original and animated, but
the composition is not felicitous. The principal figure
seems over-laden on the left side, and depends too much
on a clumsy and artificial support which disturbs the eye.
The proportions of the Satyr are too long, and the subor-
dinate parts of the composition are very carelessly treated.
Allowing for these defects, this group may be considered
a fair specimen of decorative Roman sculpture. Similar
figures, but without the infant, are engraved in Clarac?
pi. 706, fig. 1,684; pi. 716, fig. 1,707; pi. 716D, fig.
1,685E.
Early in the seventeenth century this group was in the
possession of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and afterwards
in the Villa Albani at Rome, whence it passed into the