Dancing Pan (c. 350–500): Art, History and Details

Dancing Pan (c. 350–500) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This relief sculpture demonstrates the survival of a purely pagan subject in the context of a Christian building. Even after the conversion of native Egyptians to Christianity, mythological subjects were not unusual in their art. Pan was the Greek god of woods and fields, flocks and herds, known in art by his goat's legs and pointed ears. He invented the reed pipes with which he charmed the nature goddesses known as nymphs.

Object facts

• Title: Dancing Pan
• Date: c. 350–500
• Culture: Egypt, Coptic period
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: limestone with traces of red polychromy
• Dimensions: Overall: 34 x 18.1 cm (13 3/8 x 7 1/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Byzantine
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1955.68

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.