CIRCA EARLY 3RD CENTURY A.D.

This fragment preserves the left corner of a sarcophagus. The frontal section is elaborately carved with a nude satyr facing right and leaning forward, pouring wine from a bucket toward a small Eros below. The satyr is depicted with his pointed ears protruding through his deeply drilled locks, wearing a mantle draped over his left shoulder, arm, and bent left leg, and his foot resting on a wine skin. The Eros is nude and facing left, looking up into the bucket. A hand is preserved to the right holding a theater mask aloft. The left side of the sarcophagus is carved in low relief with a horned lion-griffin. The subject matter suggests that this fragment was once part of a sarcophagus which would have been decorated with a large Dionysian scene. For a panel in the Vatican collection (inv. no. 951) with Ariadne surrounded by a retinue of maenads and satyrs, one pouring wine from a bucket to a waiting Erote and another holding a mask aloft, see Arachne Database no. 1124898.