Greek Limestone Relief of Maenads

An ancient Tarantine Greek limestone relief depicting four maenads in an ecstatic state wearing chitons and billowing himations and holding thyrsoi, one holds a stag they have surrounded by the antlers as they are about to cut it down with swords.

Ca. 300 – 280 BC.

Length: 26 3/4 in. (68 cm).

Maenads (also Bacchantes) were the frenzied female members of the retinue of Dionysos, the Greek god of wine and revelry (Roman: Bacchus). Maenads, literally “the raving ones,” were often depicted in Greek art as wild and ecstatic women who indulged in sex, violence, and intoxication.

cf.: J. C. Carter, “The Sculpture of Taras,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 65, part 7,(1975), p.94, pl. 60c.

Formerly in an English private collection; subsequently with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, acquired in 2000; subsequently in a New York private collection.

Published: J. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World, vol. XII, (2001), no. 9.
Inv#: 9259

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Guaranteed Authentic

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