A Faun Grasping a Bunch of Grapes (after 1616–18): Art, History and Details

A Faun Grasping a Bunch of Grapes (after 1616–18) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This drawing relates to a finished painting (now lost) by Peter Paul Rubens that depicted a faun (a woodland creature similar to a satyr) squeezing grapes into the mouth of a young Bacchus. That figure, shown here, could be Silenus, who educated Bacchus on the pleasures of wine, revelry, and nature. Rubens ran a large studio and employed numerous apprentices, one of whom may have made this copy after the original painting. As a form of instruction, Rubens added ink wash to the drawing to enhance the shading on the figure and shadows behind it.

Object facts

• Title: A Faun Grasping a Bunch of Grapes
• Date: after 1616–18
• Creator attribution: Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk and brush and brown wash; framing lines in pen and black ink
• Dimensions: Sheet: 37.8 x 26.2 cm (14 7/8 x 10 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Flemish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1943.341

A detail from the museum

Swirling draperies like the one haphazardly worn by this faun do more than conceal, in many cases they reveal an artist's technical skill. To render folds and gathers in fabric, artists used chiaroscuro, meaning contrasting light and dark tones.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "A Drawing by Rubens." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 31, no. 4 (April 1944 ): 48-50.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.