The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of November 9, 2025
Bacchanales: The Satyr's Family
1763
(French, 1732–1806)
Image: 14.5 x 21.4 cm (5 11/16 x 8 7/16 in.); Sheet: 18 x 24.5 cm (7 1/16 x 9 5/8 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Trust 2012.64.2
Catalogue raisonné: Wildenstein 4
Location: 101A Prints & Drawings
Description
Jean-Honoré Fragonard made these four etchings shortly after returning to Paris from Italy, where he studied antique subjects and sculpture. He may have also looked at other sources for inspiration, such as Jacques François Joseph Saly’s suite of vase designs. Though the prints feature the followers of Bacchus, the wine god does not make an appearance. Instead, Fragonard highlighted the playfully erotic frolics, conflicts, and even family life of a group of bacchants, conceiving them as low-relief sculptures on stone fragments within abundant foliage. Fragonard’s creations helped to popularize revelries in nature in French art, architecture, and garden design during the later 1700s.- Mr. and Mrs. R. Stanley Johnson, Chicago?–2012(Susan Schulman, Printseller, New York, NY, sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)September 4, 2012–The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- In Vino Veritas (In Wine, Truth). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 7, 2025-January 11, 2026).Elegance and Intrigue: French Society in 18th-century Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 16-November 6, 2016).Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth Century France. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (October 1, 2013-January 5, 2014).
- {{cite web|title=Bacchanales: The Satyr's Family |url=false|author=Jean-Honoré Fragonard|year=1763|access-date=09 November 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.64.2