Floor Mosaic with Dionysus from a Roman Villa

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Floor Mosaic with Dionysus from a Roman Villa

Place of OriginLikely Tunisia, based on stylistic evidence

Date140-160 CE

Dimensions9 ft. 10 3/8 x 9 ft 9 1/2 in. (3 x 2.9 m)

Mediumlimestone, polychrome marble, and glass tesserae

ClassificationArchitectural Elements

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1990.73

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 02, Classic

Collections

Paintings

Published References"La chronique des arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 117, no. 1466, March, 1991, repr. p. 46.

The Toledo Museum of Art Annual Report, July 1, 1990 - June 30, 1991, Toledo, 1991, p. 13, repr. (col.).

"Roman art and architecture 750 B.C. - 476 A.D., Art-A-Fact, vol. 5, no. 3, Dec. 2001/Jan. 2002, repr. p. 4 (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 87, repr. (col.).

Comparative ReferencesSee also Dunbabin, K.M.D. The Mosaics of Roman North Africa, Studies in Iconography and Patronage, Oxford, 1978, pl. LXIX, no. 176.

Label TextBacchus, Roman god of wine, poetry, theater, and rebirth, looks out from the center of this mosaic that once graced a small room in an elegant villa in the Roman province of North Africa. Grapevines sprout from the golden drinking cups around Bacchus, while the heads of maenads, his female followers, adorn the corners. Birds and lush floral decorations symbolize Bacchus’s powers of rebirth. The tesserae (pieces) of this mosaic are made of colored marble, limestone, and glass (the blue-green tiles in the foliage), and are set in a cement-like grout. North African mosaicists were known for particularly fine work, using smaller tiles to produce more detailed and subtly shaded images. There are notable stylistic similarities between the Toledo mosaic and the mosaic floors of the so-called “Maison de la Procession Dionysiaque” (or House of the Dionysiac Procession), a luxurious Roman Villa built in the middle of the 2nd century CE in El Jem (ancient Thysdrus), in Tunisia.