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Course: The Metropolitan Museum of Art > Unit 1

Lesson 12: Transformations
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art
82nd & Fifth
Transformations
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Statue of Dionysos leaning on a female figure (“Hope Dionysos”)

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Met curator Carlos A. Picón on oblivion in Statue of Dionysos leaning on a female figure (“Hope Dionysos”), restored by Vincenzo Pacetti, 27 B.C.E.–68 C.E.

The head is ancient but from another statue. Restorations by the eighteenth-century Italian sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti: (on Dionysos) ivy wreath, neck, both arms, lower right leg, calf and boot of left leg, hanging drapery on right side; (on the archaistic image) uplifted corner of drapery, both arms, lower half of lower legs, feet, pedestal, entire base.

Dionysos, god of wine and divine intoxication, wears a panther skin over his short chiton and his high sandals with animal heads on the overhanging skin flaps. He stands beside an archaistic female image whose pose and dress imitate those of Greek statues carved in the sixth century B.C.E. It is difficult to know whether the original Greek bronze statue of Dionysos, of which this is a copy, included the female figure. Supports in the form of pillars, herms, and small statues were not uncommon in Classical art, but this figure may have been added to support the outstretched arm and may represent Spes, a Roman personification of Hope, who was commonly shown as an archaistic maiden.

View this work on metmuseum.org.

Are you an educator? Here's a related lesson plan. For additional educator resources from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, visit Find an Educator Resource.

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Video transcript

You want to have a welcoming figure 2 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:09,000 that draws your eye when you enter the court that serves to anchor the pantheon of representations that you have assembled and there’s a sort of certifugal force that works. You look around and but you come back to the Hope Dionysus, because he is not only welcoming but it’s also enigmatic. This youthful god, a reflection of a lost Greek original. The Greek object would have been a religious cult figure in a temple. By the Roman period, the holiness of the object is lost. It’s simply a decorative piece, emulating the great Greek past. And it could have stood in a Roman bath, it could have stood in a garden, it could have stood in a villa. Dionysus is shown wearing a short chiton and an animal skin over it with long flowing curls. He’s shown ever so more youthful, almost androgynous. Often shown holding a tall staff, a thyrsus, and a drinking vessel in the other hand, leaning on a personification of Hope, which gives added meaning to its history. In the eighteenth century, it was broken, and it was restored, because it was simply unthinkable that you would display a sculpture in its fragmentary state. It became one of the crowning glories of the collection of Thomas Hope. At the depth of financial distress in the First World War it was sent at auction and bought by the great grandson of Benjamin Franklin. The statue traveled to Palm Beach and it was simply garden sculpture in a fine estate and was thought to be a lady. From then on it really sank into oblivion. Till it reappeared at Sotheby’s where I found it. And it’s gained its prominence, being again the centerpiece for the Roman court. One wonders what will an audience in a hundred years think of it, whether it will go out of fashion again? Whether it will be re-interpreted? Whether we will know more through new excavations? One always wonders how it will be regarded in a hundred years, or a thousand years.