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Arion on a Sea Horse and Bacchante on a Panther (pair)
William Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905)
1855
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 87.3 x 127 x 5.4 cm (34 3/8 x 50 x 2 1/8 in.); Unframed: 71.3 x 111.8 cm (28 1/16 x 44 in.)
- Culture
- France, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Adult profiles and older: its museum's description or title mentions nudity. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
These paintings are from a series of eight works that Bouguereau painted for a Parisian home decorated in the style inspired by ancient Roman wall paintings found at Pompeii. The ancient Greek poet Arion escaped pirates by fleeing on the back of a sea creature attracted by the poet's singing. In the companion picture, a bacchante, a female follower of the Roman god Bacchus, rides a panther and carries a pinecone-tipped spear called a thyrsus. The figures are silhouetted against a gold honeycomb–patterned background evoking ancient Roman mosaics Bouguereau had studied in Italy. The soft, waxy flesh tones and glimmering gold leaf were calculated to come to life when viewed under the mansion's gas lighting.
