Silenus1.0036_RiberaEtching

Jusepe de Ribera, 1591-1652, “Drunken Silenus,” 1628, etching and engraving (first state of three); Washington, National Gallery of Art, Patrons’ Permanent Fund 2004.27.1.

Compare to Ribera's painting "The Drunken Silenus," oil on canvas 1626, Naples, Galleria di Capodimonte, no. 298.
As he did with many other paintings of his own production, Ribera recreated his senstively realistic images in the reproducible medium of etching/engraving.

In a rather satiric treatment of the bacchanalia theme, the drunken Silenus embodies the ill effects of abandoned reason. Surrounded here by the doting satyrs, drunken putti, and the laughing ass that Silenus likely rode in on, the unsightly nude physique of the Silenus roundly contrasts with those inviting young revelers, especially alluring maenads, that many bacchanalia paintings so prominently feature.