On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P00418
- Author
- Tiziano, Vecellio di Gregorio
- Title
- Bacchanal on Andros
- Chronology
- 1523-1526
- Technique
- Óleo
- Support
- Lienzo
- Measures
- 175 cm x 193 cm
- School
- Italiana
- Theme
- Mitología
- On display
- Yes
- Procedence
- Colección Real (Palacio Real Nuevo, Madrid, pieza de tocador, 1794, nº 33).
A celebration of the effects of wine on the island of Andros, where wine flowed out of a spring thanks to the god, Bacchus. A nude nymph appears in the foreground, and Silenus, the god's assiduous companion, lies in the background. The music on the score in the lower center of the composition has been attributed to Adriaen Willaert, a Flemish composer active in the Court of Ferrara. Its lyrics, “Qui boyt et ne reboyt il ne seet que boyre soit” (“He who drinks and doesn't drink again, doesn't know what drinking is.”) refer to the celebration of wine by both men and gods alike.
The subject is drawn from Philostratus (Imagines I, 25), and was painted here, along with other works such as the Offering to Venus (P419), for the so-called “Alabaster Chamber” of Alfonso I de Este in Ferrara. In 1598, the group of Works was moved to the Aldobrandini Palace in Rome and in 1637, Niccolo Ludovico turned them over to Felipe IV (1605-1665) by way of the Count of Monterrey as payment by the State of Piombino. The first documented mention of the present work in Spain is in the inventories of Madrid's Alcázar Palace from 1666, 1686 and 1700.
Room 42












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