Head of Bacchus (Dionysos)

2nd–early 3rd century A.D.

Medium/TechniqueMarble, Dolomitic from the Greek Island of Thasos

DimensionsHeight x depth: 38 x 26 cm (14 15/16 x 10 1/4 in.)

Credit LineGift of Edward Jackson Holmes

Accession number41.909

On View

On view

ClassificationsSculpture

Collections

Ancient Greece and Rome

ProvenanceBy 1839, probably Casimiro Pellegrini-Danieli, Zara (present-day Zadar, Croatia) [see note 1]; 1840, probably sold with the Pellegrini-Danieli collection to Pietro Cernazai (b. 1804 – d. 1858), Udine, Italy; 1858, by inheritance to his brother, Francesco Cernazai (b. 1802 – d. 1881), Udine; 1882, bequeathed by Francesco Cernazai to the Archbishop Seminary of Udine (inv. no. 135) [see note 2]; October 24-31, 1900, Cernazai collection sale, Seminario Arcivescovile, Udine, lot 416 [see note 3]. By 1926, Edward Jackson Holmes (b. 1873 – d. 1950), Boston [see note 4]; 1941, gift of Edward Jackson Holmes to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 11, 1941)

NOTES:
[1] Carlo Federico Bianchi, Zara Cristiana dell’Arcidiacono Capitolare, vol. II (Zara, 1880), 425-427 transcribes an 1839 inventory of the Pellegrini-Danieli collection, which in 1840 was sold en bloc to Pietro Cernazai. The inventory of some 300 works of art does not go into sufficient detail to identify the present sculpture. The Danieli collection had been formed in the eighteenth century by Antonio Danieli, whose antiquities came from the area around Zara, and in particular, from Aenona (present-day Nin, Croatia).

[2] See Julius Bankó and Pietro Sticotti, “Antikensammlung im erzbischöflichen Seminare zu Udine,” Archaeologisch-epigraphische Mittheilungen aus Oesterreich – Ungarn 18 (1895), 52-53 (on the history of the collection), and 75, cat. no. 32 (for the present sculpture).

[3] Many thanks to Jörg Deterling for locating this record.

[4] Lent by Edward Jackson Holmes to the MFA November 27, 1926 (loan no. 386.26).