#borghese vase

[illustratus]

A Capriccio of Classical Ruins with the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, the Temple of the Sybil at Tivoli, the Pont du Gard near Nîmes and the Borghese vase — by Giovanni Paolo Panini

[salomi]

Borghese Vase

The Borghese Vase is a monumental bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens from Pentelic marble in the second half of the 1st century BC as a garden ornament for the Roman market.

The frieze depicts the thiasus, an ecstatic Bacchanalian procession accompanying Dionysus, draped with the panther skin and playing the aulos, and Ariadne. The draped figures are often said to be Maenads but are clearly not: Maenads are females who accompany Dionysus but on the vase a draped male figure is depicted.

One of the figures is shown being anointed, typically a symbolic act of divinity, leading to the interpretation of some of the figures as Apollo and Dionysus rescuing Silenus who is shown falling down reaching for a spilled flagon of wine. This scene on the vase corresponds to the saying "The Gods look after children and drunken men" which has been passed down orally through many generations.

[experienced12]

The Met:

  Calyx Krater, so-called "Borghese Vase"  40-30 BC Roman