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Maenad of Skopas

A female figure in a state of frenzied religious ecstasy.

Kallistratos described in the third or fourth century CE a marble Maenad by Skopas. The work he was praising does not survive, but this may be a rather battered Roman copy, reduced in size. Maenads, also known as Bacchae, were female spirits associated with Dionysos — the Roman Bacchus — and were usually depicted dancing or in a state of possessed frenzy (enthusiasmos)

Material: 
Marble
Location of Original: 

Dresden Albertinum 133

Size: 
0.45m
Accession: 

Purchased in 1927

References: 

Lippold: Griechische Plastik, 251 (n.5)
Six: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts XXXIII (1918), 38-
Hermann: Catalogue of the Dresden Museum, 39-
Richter: Sculpture & Sculptors of the Greeks (1950), 276, fig.709
Lawrence: Later Greek Sculpture (1927), 12. Appendix 95, pl. 9b
Kallistratos: Descriptions 2
Knoll et al: Die Antiken im Albertinum (1993), 28

Date: 
Roman. Original: c.360 BCE
Sculptor: 
Of original: Skopas
Provenance: 

Found in Marino in central western Italy

Number: 
245

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