Child's Sarcophagus with Bacchus and his Followers in the British Museum, May 2014

Object type: sarcophagus

Museum number: 1996,0301.1


Description:

Marble sarcophagus for a child decorated with Bacchic thiasos; the slab of the lid is modern, but not the figure of the Silenus, which, however, does not belong to this sarcophagus.
The sarcophagus features two main scenes framed by two pairs of lion heads holding heavy rings. On the front of the casket at the centre Bacchus is supported by a young follower, while a maenad runs ahead with a panther. On the back is a scene of three boys pressing grapes in a vat. At the ends are shown groups of centaurs and maenads playing horns, lyres and flutes, and Pan.



Culture/period: Roman Imperial (coffin)


Date: 3rdC (sarcophagus), mid 1stC (Silenus figure from lid)


Findspot: Found/Acquired: Castle Howard (Europe,British Isles,England,North Yorkshire,Castle Howard)


Materials: marble


Dimensions: Length: 85 centimetres


Curator's comments: Based on Michaelis' inattentive reading of Dallaway's Anecdotes of the Arts in England, the lid has been thought of as modern since the publication of Ancient Marbles in Great Britain in 1882. However, as Linfert (2005, 147) points out, it is merely the slab into which the figure of the Silenus is placed that it modern. The figure itself can be dated to the early Empire, possibly Claudian, after an original of the late 2nd century BC.

Michaelis, AMGB, 330, nr. 48.
Dallaway, Anecdotes of the Arts in England (1800), 298.
F. Matz, ASR IV.1, 176, nr. 22.
B. Borg, H. von Hesberg, and A. Linfert (2005) Die antiken Skulpturen in Castle Howard, 147, nr. 92b.


Acquisition date: 1996

Acquisition notes: Purchased by Private Treaty.

Department: Greek & Roman Antiquities


Text from: www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=421549