Drunk Silen

Drunk Silenus The bronze statuette of the “Drunk Silenus” is a miniature copy of the antique Roman statue, housed in the collection of the Museo Nazionale in Naples, made according to the Hellenistic sculpture style from the 2nd-1st c. BCE (height: 61 cm). In Greek mythology, Silenus is a deity associated with forests and mountains, appearing in the entourage of the wine god Dionysus. In the Hellenistic period, old Silenus was often depicted in a comical way: as a debauched, drunken old man with a potbelly, bald and with a flat nose. This is exactly the kind of Silenus depicted by the Łańcut statuette. The old man, standing with his bent legs apart, holds up the hoop of a lamp with a snake-shaped handle in his left hand. His hips are covered with drapery tied under the protruding belly. The bald head is capped with a grapevine wreath. The face with a wide and flat nose is covered with wrinkles and framed by a beard that falls on the man's chest. The sculpture was created at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Its creator is unknown.