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Your galleryDrunken Silenus (the "Tazza Farnese")
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Follow the wreath of vines around the edge like the rim of a dish, then find the two children holding up bunches of grapes.
Annibale engraved this scene on a slightly curved silver dish for Cardinal Farnese, and writers of his day admired the plate as both a work of art and a vessel for wine. Two satyrs pour wine from a skin into the mouth of the drunken Silenus, under a ring of grapevines. The image probably came from a Roman gem in Farnese’s collection, and the dish is now in the Capodimonte museum in Naples.
Engraving on ivory laid paper · Image in: Diam.: 32 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Drunken Silenus (the "Tazza Farnese")
- Artist
- Annibale Carracci Italian, 1560-1609
- Date
- c. 1597
- Medium
- Engraving on ivory laid paper
- Dimensions
- Image in: Diam.: 32 cm (12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 42.7 × 32 cm (16 13/16 × 12 5/8 in.)
- Credit line
- The Regenstein Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.







