Dancing Satyr Group (500–475 BCE): Art, History and Details

Dancing Satyr Group (500–475 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Part man and part beast, satyrs were mythical woodland creatures. In art, they were depicted with the ears and tail of a goat or horse, sometimes with hooves, and in a high state of sexual arousal. Satyrs often accompanied Dionysus, the god of wine, in his drinking bouts and other escapades. These three probably once decorated the rim of a large punch-bowl-shaped vessel for serving wine.

Object facts

• Title: Dancing Satyr Group
• Date: 500–475 BCE
• Culture: Greece, Boeotia
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: painted terracotta
• Dimensions: Overall: 8.4 x 11 x 5.6 cm (3 5/16 x 4 5/16 x 2 3/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1992.352

A detail from the museum

Satyrs, or lustful, drunken woodland gods, are the biggest partiers in ancient Greek mythology.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Muscarella, Oscar White. Ancient Art: The Norbert Schimmel Collection. Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1974.
• Hoffmann, H. "Some Unpublished Boeotian Satyr Terracottas," Antike Kunst vol. 7.2 (1964).
• Settgast, Jürgen, Ulrich Gehrig, Eva Strommenger, and Klaus Vierneisel. Von Troja bis Amarna: the Norbert Schimmel collection, New York. Mainz: P. von Zabern, 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.