MaenadsANCIENT_LouvreMariette

MaenadsANCIENT_LouvreMariette

OGCMA s.v. "Maenads"
OGCMA s.v. "Cassandra"
OGCMA s.v. "Cassandra"

Anonymous ancient sardonyx gemstone drawn by P.J. Mariette, "Une Ménade", reproduced in Mariette's (nd) Traité des Pierres Gravées et un Recueil des Pierres Gravées du Cabinet du Roy, vol. 2, p. XLI, in the gem cabinet of Henri IV, King of France.

The image at right is derived from Mariette's Traité archive.org, and used as in public domain.

The otherwise non-descript Dionysiac scene is made more interesting by Josiah Wedgwood's moderate adaptation from a maenad into a Cassandra, calling the ceramic plaque derived from this image "Cassandra Grasping the Palladium" (Cassandra2.0003_Wedgwood), a misidentification C. Macht sees as willful. See also MaenadsANCIENT_Louvre200

Macht — Classical Wedgwood Designs (1957), 38-39 — cites Baumeister, II, p. 848
Bouillon, P. and J.-B. de Saint-Victor. (nd) Musée des Antiques I (Bas-reliefs); Reinach, S. Répertoire de la Statuaire Grècque et Romaine I, p. 32 (image)
and
Visconti, E.Q. and Frédéric, Comte de Clarac. (1820) Déscription des Antiques du Musée Royale no. 200 "bas-relief représentant une Ménade ou Bacchante en fureur, la tête en arrière, et ayant entre ses mains un des objets des mystères dionysiaques. Mus. Bou. v. 3."

OGCMA slides are designed by Roger T. Macfarlane for use in Classical Civilization 241 courses at Brigham Young University.
The present resource contains information assembled for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300 - 1990's, edited by J. Davidson Reid (Oxford 1994), and it is used with express permission from Oxford University press.
Address concerns or inquiries to macfarlane@byu.edu.