On-line gallery
- Reference number
- P01170
- Author
- Velázquez, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y (Spanish)
- Title
- The Triumph of Bacchus, or the Drunkards
- Chronology
- 1628-1629
- Technique
- Support
- Measures
- 165 cm x 225 cm
- School
- Theme
- Shown
- Yes
- Entrance
- COLECCIONREAL
- Procedence
- Royal Collection
Seated on a barrel, seminude and
wearing grape leaves on his head,
the god of wine crowns a young
soldier surrounded by a group of
drinkers. The treatment of this
subject distances itself from the
noble tradition of the myth in a
naturalistic reinterpretation.
There is no lack of paradox between
the almost ritual gravity of the
figures on the left and the playful
irony and realism of the group on
the right. Stylistically, this work
retains the naturalist taste of the
artist's time in Seville, along
with the colorist influence he
assimilated from the work of Rubens
and from the sixteenth-century
Venetians.
By Royal Warrant, Velasquez was
paid one hundred ducats for this,
his first mythological painting in
1629. Here, he developed a
pictorial discourse on the virtues
of wine and its capacity to console
people from the strife of daily
life.
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