Fragment of a Marble Relief with Dancing Maenads in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2010

Fragment of a Marble Relief with Dancing Maenads
Roman, 1st- 2nd century AD
Adaption of a Greek relief of about 425-400 BC attributed to Kallimachos

Accession # 21.88.12

In myth and art the wine god, Dionysos, is accompanied by dancing women known as maenads. The most famous description of the comes from The Bacchae, a play by Euripides produced in Athens in the late fifth century BC. The most famous representations are from a relief of dancing maenads carved at the same time. This small relief is a reduced copy dating from the Roman period.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.