The Triumph of Bacchus.

Drawing, pen and brown ink, with brown wash, traces of graphite, framing lines in brown ink, 37 x 70 cm, laid paper, unsigned (several vertical creases, sm. tears around edges with loss of image at left side, some stains and smudges, laid down on paper mount).

Under passe-partout.

Large drawing after Annibale Carracci's fresco in the Palazzo Farnese, part of the famous fresco cycle "The Love of the Gods" (1597-1608). The Triumph of Bacchus is the central panel in the series and depicts a both riotous and classically restrained procession which ferries Bacchus and Ariadne to their bed. Here, the underlying myth is that Bacchus had gained the love of the abandoned princess, Ariadne. The procession recalls the triumphs of the Republican and Imperial Roman era, in which the parades of victorious leaders had the laurel-crowned "imperator" in a white chariot with two white horses. At the fore, Bacchus' tutor, the paunchy, ugly, and leering drunk Silenus, rides a mule. Soon after the completion of Carracci's frescoes, they were admired and used as inspiration for the following generations of Mannerist, Baroque, and Classicist artists. The drawing seems to have been left unfinished and only the left half has been supplemented with brown wash.
Prov. Albert Van Loock (stamp on verso, Lugt 3751).