Statue of Dionysos

A statue of the Greek god Dionysus or Roman Bacchus, as a young man. He has a hipshot pose, with the right right leg straight and the left leg bent. He looks towards the left. He is naked with a skin of an aninal hanging underneath his left armpit. His left hand is a restoration and holds a drinking cup (kantharos). His right arm embraces a thyrsos, a stick decorated with laurel or myrtle and associated with the Dionysian revellers. The god has his head slightly titled and has a naive expression. He wears a fillet on the crown of his head, his hair is long and untamed and falls onto his neck. Although he is easily identified as Bacchus because of the nebris and the thyrsos, he does not wear the typical crown of ivy and grapes. The statue may be a Roman copy of a Dionysus by the ancient Greek sculptor of the 5th century BC, Polykleitos, though he is much more slender in proportions than the Polykleitos' statues. Although the head does not fit the torso, it is from the same statue. The statue group of a Satyr and Hermaphrodite (59.148.30) was found in the same context and Blundell recorded that it was bought from the widow of the La Piccola who was the keeper of the Capitol.