A MARBLE RELIEF OF A BACCHANALIAN SCENE

In a riotous scene, children and satyrs abound; one appears to have succumbed to the revelry, lying forlorn upon a companion; next to them a child strides forward, stepping over a young satyr, holding a jug on his shoulder; another, dressed in animal skin, drinks from a cup, with a goat eating fruit in the foreground. Ultimately deriving from antique compositions, the scene is clearly influenced by the bas-reliefs of the Flemish sculptors François Duquesnoy (1597-1643) and Gerard Van Opstal (1605-1668). The most direct comparables are a series of small reliefs by van Opstal now in the Louvre (Gaborit, loc. cit.).