Sleeping Baccante

Artist: Francois Theodore Devaulx (Paris, France; 1808-1870)
Year: 1846
Medium: Bronze mounted on green marble base
Original Location: Grand Salon
Size: Length - 17” (including base)
2014.03.17 BMA Purchase, The Mr. and Mrs. Franck H. Kaiser, Sr. Collection

Beginning in 1823 Devaulx studied at the `Ecole de Beaux-arts under Jules Ramey. He comes in second place in the Prix de Rome in 1833. He exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1845 until his death in 1870. A Bacchante also known as a Maenad is a devoted female follower of Bacchus the God of wine. Her figure in art usually expresses physical abandonment. Often she is portrayed with a tambourine. While this statue does not have the tambourine she is holding a Thyrsus which is often carried by Bacchus. The Thyrsus is a staff with grapes, a symbol of Bacchus and tipped with a pine cone the ancient symbol of fertility. This statue is documented as being in the Grand Salon by an article in the Louisville Courier Journal in 1881