Bacchante and Infant Faun (Primary Title)
Frederick MacMonnies, American, 1863 - 1937 (Artist)
Following an apprenticeship with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and study abroad at the École des Beaux-Arts, MacMonnies triumphed as a leading sculptor at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. But his Bacchante and Infant Faun, well received at the Paris Salon of 1894, garnered the most comment and controversy. Placed on view at the Boston Public Library, a life-size version of this nude figure shocked public sensibility. The ebullient bacchante – in classical literature a celebrant of Bacchus, god of win – skips as she dangles a cluster of grapes over a baby’s head. The large bronze was rejected by the library board as inappropriate – more on grounds of her seemingly tipsy demeanor than her state of undress. Almost immediately it was accepted into the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
MacMonnies, who enjoyed a prolific career for decades to come, found a successful market for bronze reductions of the infamous Bacchante – including this 1895 casting, which retains its original Corinthian-column pedestal.
"Look Here: Speed, VMFA, September 9, 2006 - January 7, 2007
"Paris 1900: The 'American School' at the Universal Exposition", The Montclair Art Museum, September 18, 1999 - January 16, 2000; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, February 11 - April 16,2000; Columbus Museum of Art, May 18 - August 13, 2000; Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison, WI, September 16, 2000 - January 28, 2001; Musee Carnavalet, Paris, late February - May 13, 2001
June, 1961, Albemarle Art Association, Charlottesville, VA
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