The Borghese Vase is a monumental bell-shaped

krater A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, krat ...

sculpted in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

from

Penteli Penteli ( el, Πεντέλη) is a village and a municipality in the North Athens regional unit, Attica, Greece. It belongs to the Athens rural area. It takes its name from Mount Pentelicus. Municipality The municipality Penteli was formed at th ...

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

in the second half of the 1st century BC as a

garden ornament A garden ornament is an item used for garden, landscape, and park enhancement and decoration. Garden ornaments include: * bench *bird baths * bird feeders * birdhouses *columns – cast stone *fire basket * flower box ** window box *fountains ...

for the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

market; it is now in the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Original

Iconography

Standing 1.72 metres tall and with a diameter of 1.35 m., the vase has a deep frieze with bas-reliefs and an everted gadrooned lip over a gadrooned lower section, where paired satyrs' heads mark the former placement of loop handles; it stands on a spreading fluted stem with a cabled motif round its base, on a low octagonal

plinth A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...

. The frieze depicts the ''

thiasus In Greek mythology and religion, the ''thiasus'' ( el, θίασος, thíasos), was the ecstatic retinue of Dionysus, often pictured as inebriated revelers. Many of the myths of Dionysus are connected with his arrival in the form of a processi ...

'', an ecstatic Bacchanalian procession accompanying

Dionysus In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Roma ...

, draped with the panther skin and playing the aulos, and

Ariadne Ariadne (; grc-gre, Ἀριάδνη; la, Ariadne) was a Cretan princess in Greek mythology. She was mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. She is best known for havi ...

. However, the accompanying figures, often said to be

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

s, have neither the common characteristics of cloven feet nor equine tails flowing to the floor as typically shown on Greek pottery; some references identify the figures as sileni. The draped figures are often said to be

Maenads In Greek mythology, maenads (; grc, μαινάδες ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, ...

but are clearly not: Maenads are females who accompany Dionysus but on the vase a draped male figure is depicted. One of the figures is shown being anointed, typically a symbolic act of divinity, leading to the interpretation of some of the figures as

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

and Dionysus rescuing

Silenus In Greek mythology, Silenus (; grc, Σειληνός, Seilēnós, ) was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue ('' thiasos''), and sometimes considerably older, in which ...

who is shown falling down reaching for a spilled flagon of wine. This scene on the vase corresponds to the saying "The Gods look after children and drunken men" which has been passed down orally through many generations. Many copies of the vase do not correctly depict the scene, replacing Dionysus with a female figure on the wrongful assumption that a sexual act is in progress.

Rediscovery

The vase was rediscovered in a Roman garden that occupied part of the site of the

gardens of Sallust The Gardens of Sallust ( la, Horti Sallustiani) was an ancient Roman estate including a landscaped pleasure garden developed by the historian Sallust in the 1st century BC. It occupied a large area in the northeastern sector of Rome, in what wo ...

in 1566 and acquired by the

Borghese The House of Borghese is a princely family of Italian noble and papal background, originating as the Borghese or Borghesi in Siena, where they came to prominence in the 13th century and held offices under the ''commune''. During the 16th century, ...

family.

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

bought it from his brother-in-law Camillo Borghese in 1808, and it has been displayed in the Louvre since 1811. In his capriccio shown below, the French artist

Hubert Robert Hubert Robert (22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.Jean de Cayeux. ...

embellished and enlarged the Borghese Vase for dramatic effect and set it, in atmospherically ruinous condition, on the Aventine overlooking the

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world t ...

, a position it never occupied. Robert also painted it in several other settings, including the gardens of

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

(''L'entrée du Tapis Vert'') with Marie Antoinette and

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

Copies

Often paired and rescaled to balance the slightly smaller

Medici Vase The Medici Vase is a monumental marble bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens in the second half of the 1st century AD as a garden ornament for the Roman market. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Description Standing 1.52 metres ...

, it is one of the most admired and influential marble vases from antiquity, forms that satisfied the Baroque and neoclassical approach to

classical art Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic d ...

alike. Three pairs were copied for the ''Bassin de Latone'' in the

gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover so ...

; alabaster pairs stand in the Great Hall at

Houghton Hall Houghton Hall ( ) is a country house in the parish of Houghton in Norfolk, England. It is the residence of David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. It was commissioned by the ''de facto'' first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Wa ...

, Norfolk; and bronze ones at

Osterley Park Osterley Park and House is a Georgian country estate in west London, that straddles the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Originally dating from the 1570s, the estate contains a number of Grade I and II listed buildings, with the park ...

, Middlesex. On a reduced scale, the vases made admirable

wine cooler A wine cooler is an alcoholic beverage made from wine and fruit juice, often in combination with a carbonated beverage and sugar. Traditionally home-made, wine coolers have been bottled and sold by commercial distributors since the early 198 ...

s in silver, or in silver-gilt, as

Paul Storr Paul Storr (baptised 28 October 1770 in London – 18 March 1844 in London) was an English goldsmith and silversmith working in the Neoclassical style, Neoclassical and other styles during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Hi ...

delivered them to

the Prince Regent George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from the death of his father, King George III, on 29 January 1820, until his own death ten y ...

in 1808 (Haskell and Penny 1981:315).

John Flaxman John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several ye ...

based a bas-relief on the frieze of the Borghese Vase (

Sir John Soane's Museum Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect, John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects, and ...

, London). As decorative objects they have been reproduced through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and remain popular subjects for imitation in bronze or

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

, for example in Coade stone (a reduced-size Coade stone example dating from 1770-1771 stands in the Temple of Flora at Stourhead), and also in jasper ware by

Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the indus ...

(c. 1790), who adapted the form of the Medici Vase for the bas-reliefs and provided it with a lid and a neoclassical drum pedestal.

References

Sources

*Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1981. ''Taste and the Antique: the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900'' (Yale University Press) Cat. no. 81.

External links

Louvre Database entryWedgwood copy of the Borghese VaseImage of the Borghese vase showing male mortal next to female playing the lyre
{{Louvre Museum 1st-century BC sculptures 1566 archaeological discoveries Borghese antiquities Antiquities acquired by Napoleon Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures of the Louvre Hellenistic and Roman sculptural vases Hellenistic-style Roman sculptures

History of sculpture Archaeological discoveries in Italy Dionysus in art Ariadne Silenus Apollo in art