Head of Dionysus (Primary Title)
Unknown (Artist)
Dionysos, the god of wine, theatre, and madness, was a shifter of shapes and aspects. He is depicted here wearing a crown of ivy, a plant sacred to him. The playwright Euripides, whose bust is in this gallery, depicts Dionysos as a latecomer to Greek religion in The Bacchae (ca. 508 BC); however, Dionysos’s name has been identified among the Mycenaean Greek inscriptions of the late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC), proving the god’s early presence in Greece.
Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Fund
"Art from the Ancient World", VMFA Artmobile exhibition, September 24, 1966 - January 20, 1967
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC
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