Lot Essay
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
H.W. Janson, Nineteenth Century Sculpture, Thames and Hudson, 1985, pp. 62-3.
The present sculpture is after the celebrated work by Dannecker (d.1841) in the State Sculpture Gallery, Frankfurt. Ariadne, daughter of the king of Crete, having helped Theseus, whom she loved, to escape from the labrynth was in return abandonned by him on the island of Naxos. Bacchus rescued her, consoled her and they soon were married. The vine wreth in Ariadne's hair allude to her union with Bacchus the God of wine, as does the panther which is often depicted drawing Bacchus's Triumphal chariot. Ariadne's heavenward gaze may also relate to the constellation that Bacchus created when he threw her jewelled crown to the heavens.
H.W. Janson, Nineteenth Century Sculpture, Thames and Hudson, 1985, pp. 62-3.
The present sculpture is after the celebrated work by Dannecker (d.1841) in the State Sculpture Gallery, Frankfurt. Ariadne, daughter of the king of Crete, having helped Theseus, whom she loved, to escape from the labrynth was in return abandonned by him on the island of Naxos. Bacchus rescued her, consoled her and they soon were married. The vine wreth in Ariadne's hair allude to her union with Bacchus the God of wine, as does the panther which is often depicted drawing Bacchus's Triumphal chariot. Ariadne's heavenward gaze may also relate to the constellation that Bacchus created when he threw her jewelled crown to the heavens.