Brummer Gallery, New York January 3, 1924. Sold to William Randolph Hearst, May 8, 1924. Acquired by Gimbel Bros., Inc., New York, November 1944. Thereafter Horace Richter Collection (1918-2006), New York and Jerusalem, acquired in New York by 1990; thence by descent.
Slightly under life-size statue of Dionysos, god of wine, drunkenness and ecstasy, as idealised, androgynous youth with long curly hair. He wears a short belted chiton and over it a belted animal skin with panther head. Emphatically feminine face with slim proportions, thin, pointed chin and curved lips. Venus rings on the neck. Sitting alongside the outer left leg is a panther (head unbroken). The presentation of the god with shoulder-length tresses, short chiton and panther skin chosen here is known to us from numerous copies, free reworkings and faint echoes, and can probably be traced back to a Greek original of the 4th century B.C. Reverse coarsely worked and smoothed (with visible tool marks). Left upper arm, lower legs, boots, panther’s body and base reattached. Back of the head and neck area reassembled from several fragments. Diagonal fracture line running across the breast as far as the left shoulder. A plaster restoration of the upper half of the head was added in 1924, and has since been removed and kept by us.
