Bacchante on a Panther
Part of a series of six paintings that decorated Etienne Bartholony's house in Paris, these paintings emulate ancient Roman designs. Crisp, cut out forms are set against a gold background painted in imitation of mosaic. Arion was an ancient Greek poet who escaped death by riding away on the back of a sea creature who had been attracted by the poet's song. In the companion picture, a bacchante—a female worshipper of the wine god Bacchus—rides on a panther, the god's symbolic animal. These works were shown at the 1857 Paris Salon exhibition.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1855
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- framed: height 0.873 m, width 1.27 m, depth 0.054 m; unframed: height 0.714 m, width 1.113 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Subject Matter
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Classical Mythology Both · 99%
The museum identifies the figure as a bacchante, a female worshipper of Bacchus, and the image presents her riding the panther associated with that mythology.
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Animals Both · 99%
A large panther occupies much of the lower half of the composition and is explicitly identified in the title and museum description.
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Movement Visual · 95%
The panther’s extended legs and tail, the rider’s outstretched body, and the billowing drapery establish a pronounced horizontal sense of motion.
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Human Figure Visual · 98%
The composition prominently depicts a modeled human figure riding the animal.
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Nude Visual · 96%
The rider’s torso and portions of the legs are visibly bare, with drapery covering parts of the body.
Visual Qualities
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Patterns Both · 99%
A regular repeating geometric motif covers the gold ground; the museum describes this ground as painted in imitation of mosaic.
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Highly Ornamented Both · 94%
The patterned gold background, elaborate drapery, leafy headpiece, and carefully rendered animal produce a richly embellished decorative surface.
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Dense Composition Visual · 93%
The figures overlap within a tightly filled oval panel, leaving little open space and concentrating attention on the rider and panther.
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Flatness Visual · 89%
The modeled figures are set against a largely shallow, flattened patterned field rather than a receding natural environment.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Both · 99%
The work is cataloged as oil on fabric, and the image visibly presents an oil-painted surface with modeled flesh, drapery, and animal anatomy.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art dates the work to 1855 and identifies its place of origin as France in the nineteenth century.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The artist is identified as French and the place of origin is recorded as France.
Source & rights
William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905). Bacchante on a Panther. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 6,148 × 3,997 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available