Dancing Satyr
Unknown · 2nd century AD (?)
A satyr throws himself into a dance, his weight on one leg, his body twisting, a wreath of ivy leaves and berries on his head. The berries were hollowed with a drill to make them catch the light. Look carefully, though: only the torso and the upper thighs are ancient. The head, of a different marble, was joined to the body in modern times, and the centre of the face, the nape, the neck, the support and all the gaps were filled in a veined marble that does not quite match. The marble is badly cracked.
Dancing satyrs, the goat eared followers of Dionysos, were carved in the Hellenistic period to decorate gardens and dining rooms, and Roman workshops copied them in the second century AD, when this figure was made in Italy. It was found in Rome in 1630 and came to France in the seventeenth or eighteenth century; the museum records it as probably seized from a private collection during the Revolution. Compare it with the piping satyr elsewhere in this hall: one is at rest, the other in full motion, two sides of the same wild companion of the god.
Did You Know? Run your eye over the surface and you will find two marbles: the ancient torso and the veined stone a restorer used for everything else.
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