Title(s):
Drunken Silenus Silenus at the wine vat
Maker:
Ribera, Jusepe de (lo Spagnoletto); printmaker; Italian artist, 1590-1652
Category:
Name:
print
Date:
1628
School/Style:
Spanish
Production
Note:
I/III.
Technique(s):
etching
engraving; touches (?)
Material(s):
black carbon ink; medium
laid paper; support
Dimension(s):
height, plate, 275, mm
width, plate, 354, mm
height, sheet, 275, mm
width, sheet, 354, mm
Acquisition:
bequeathed; 1816; Fitzwilliam, Richard, 7th Viscount
Notes:
Ribera's final masterpiece in printmaking, this is a variant of the composition of a painting made two years earlier (in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples), which in turn was inspired by an engraving by Annibale Carracci of the same subject. Silenus, son of Pan, was a corpulent agricultural divinity who raised Bacchus from childhood and led his triumphal processions on a braying donkey. As in the painting, Pan is shown crowning Silenus with ivy, but Ribera changed some iconographic details: replacing Pan's tortoise with his pipes, introducing two putti and opening out the landscape on the right. The popularity of the print is demonstrated by its reappearance in two later editions bearing the inscriptions of two Roman publishers, Giovanni Orlandi and Giovanni Rossi (the second dated 1649). Ribera's signature records the Latin names of the country, province, and town of his birth-Hispanus (Spain), Valenti (Valencia), Setaben (Játiva)-and the Greek name of the place where the print was made, Partenope (Naples).
Inscription(s):
signature; image lower right; printed; Joseph a Ribera Hisps. Valentis. / Setaben. f. Partenope
date; image lower right; printed; 1628
inscription; verso; graphite; y y middl; Viscount Fitzwilliam's mounting instructions
inscription; verso; brown ink; lire / 03; price (?)
inscription; verso; graphite; 32
inscription; verso; graphite; 119; crossed through
Alternative
Number(s):
Bartsch; 13 I/II
Illustrated Bartsch; 13 I/II
Brown (Ribera); 14 I/III
Exhibition(s):
From Polidoro to Salvator Rosa: Drawings and Prints from Naples. 1998-09-22 - 1998-12-23
Organiser: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Venue: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Cambs.)
Lord Fitzwilliam's print albums. 1994-05-17 - 1994-09-18
Organiser: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Venue: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Cambs.)
Related Object:
31.K.12; Miscellaneous Collection of Engravings
Accession:
Object Number: 31.K.12-125
(Paintings, Drawings and Prints)
(record id: 93605; input: 2003-06-20; modified: 2006-01-26)
Permanent
Identifier: