Hellenistic Greek Bronze Dancing Satyr

The figure can be identified as an athletic young satyr; he has erected equine ears and a tail at his lower back. The naked satyr is portrayed in the act of dancing. His right arm hangs along his body to hold a small, finely decorated trefoil wine jug, the oinochoe. His left arm is raised above his head, probably to support the object carried on his head, which could be a torch, or waving his goatskin. The dancing attitude highlights the symposiastic nature of the statuette, which could be a figural part of the lamp holder or a thymiaterion (the incense burner), judging from a tubular shaft attached to the top of his head. The shaft rising from the head would terminate in a small cup for the incense or in a disk to hold the lamp. This piece was made by the lost wax casting process and then cold-worked to add finely incised details (face, hair, tail, accessories). The end of the left leg has a small tenon, indicating that it was attached to the foot; probably the lamp stand with the figure’s feet was cast separately.

The particularly well-modeled musculature is noteworthy: a thrusting chest, sinuous abdominal muscles and twisted hips (because of the raised left arm), rounded buttocks, rippling muscles on the upper and lower limbs. His face is slightly chubby, but with jaw and chin clearly defined. All the distinctive features of the satyr are represented: bushy eyebrows, a small turned-up nose, pointed ears and a small ponytail on the lower back. The dynamic swaying attitude and the well-developed though realistic rendering of the musculature of the satyr enable us to attribute this statuette to a northern Greek workshop, following the great sculptural trend that artists developed during the Hellenistic period.

Satyrs are creatures of Greek mythology. They are associated with their female counterparts, maenads (women with a human appearance, but possessed by madness), to form the “Dionysian procession” that accompanies Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. Living in the woods and hills, satyrs usually have a human form, but they are also endowed with animal features, such as the ears and tail of a horse. They may sometimes have goat’s hooves; this might have been the case in this example, given the presence of the tenon indicating a foot made separately and then added, an element that links them more to Pan, the god of the wild. They are sometimes confused with Sileni, who have the same half-human and half-animal appearance (occasionally more exaggerated, since they are then provided with the lower limbs of a horse), but they differ in being represented as older and therefore wiser men.

Both feet missing; fingers of the left hand damaged; a few dents; the patina is dark and shows concretions and oxidation in places; the object on the head of the figure is incomplete.

Ex- German private collection, 1980’s; Gorny & Mosch, Giessener Münzhandlung, 15 December 2004, Munich, Auktion 137, lot 148; ex- European private collection.

Gorny & Mosch Giessener Münzhandlung, 15 December 2004, Munich, Auktion 137, pp. 46-47, no. 148.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Vol. VIII, Zurich-Munich-Dusseldorf, 1997, s.v. Sileni, type I-D (pot-bellied or athletic), no. 38 (black-figure vase); type III-E-2 (Dionysian cult scene), no. 142 (black-figure vase).

On the evolution of the models in great Greek sculpture:

BOARDMAN J., Greek sculpture: the late classical period and sculpture in colonies and overseas, London, 1995.

SMITH R.R.R., Hellenistic sculpture, London, 1991.