Head of Dionysos in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, June 2018

Head of Dionysus (Primary Title)

Unknown (Artist)

Date: 2nd century

Culture: Roman

Category: Sculpture

Medium: marble

Collection: Ancient Art

Dimensions: Overall: 15 × 10 × 12 in. (38.1 × 25.4 × 30.48 cm)

Object Number: 64.12.2


Dionysos, the god of wine, theatre, and madness, was a shifter of shapes and aspects. He is depicted here wearing a crown of ivy, a plant sacred to him. The playwright Euripides, whose bust is in this gallery, depicts Dionysos as a latecomer to Greek religion in The Bacchae (ca. 508 BC); however, Dionysos’s name has been identified among the Mycenaean Greek inscriptions of the late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC), proving the god’s early presence in Greece.

Text from: www.vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-107526436