Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (c. 1470): Artwork and History

Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (c. 1470) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Workshop of Andrea Mantegna Italian, 1431-1506.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Andrea Mantegna was an artist with a deep interest in antiquity, and much of his work resembled Greco-Roman sculpture, which he translated into widely circulating and frequently copied engravings. This is the left half of a pair of prints; the adjoining print Bacchanal with Silenos (1956.1010) is also in the Art Institute’s collection. Mantegna’s frieze-shaped bacchanalian subjects portray the god of wine and his drunken revelers. Dionysos may be the standing youth on the left, who is being crowned with a wreath of grape leaves. His noble bearing and contrapposto stance link him particularly to ancient sculptures.

Object facts

• Title: Bacchanal with a Wine Vat
• Date: c. 1470
• Artist attribution: Workshop of Andrea Mantegna Italian, 1431-1506
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Engraving on cream laid paper
• Dimensions: 31.2 × 45 cm (12 5/16 × 17 3/4 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1956.1011

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.