Category Archives: Classical

Agave with the Head of Pentheus

DescriptionEnglish: Agave with the head of Pentheus. In her right she grasps by the hair the head of her son, in her left a thyrsus capped with leaves and trimmed with floating ribbands. Her head is violently thrown back, and the lower part of the drapery is tossed about as she dances for joy. The woodcut is enlarged, by one-third, from a ‘paste’ in the gem-cabinet of the British Museum.
Date1880 (from an ancient gem)
SourceBacchae of Euripides (https://archive.org/details/bacchaeofeuripid00euriuoft/page/72/mode/2up)
AuthorAnonymous
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The Tiber

DescriptionEnglish: “Image of the Tiber River in marble, the work of an excellent artist, in the Vatican garden of the Popes in Rome.”
Latina: Tiberis Fluvii simulacrum è marmore excellentis artificis opus, in Vaticano Pontificum viridario Romae.
Date1585
SourceAntiqvarvm statvarvm vrbis Romae primvs et secvndvs liber (https://archive.org/details/antiqvarvmstatva121cava/page/n29/mode/2up)
AuthorGiovanni Battista de’Cavalieri

Laocoon

DescriptionEnglish: “Statue of Laocoon, made from marble with wondrous art, in the Pontifical garden, Rome, not as described by Virgil or Pliny but after the description of the Greek Poets.”
Latina: Laocoontis signum e marmore mira arte factum in Pontificio viridario, Romae non quale à Virgilio, ac Plinio, sed cuiusmodi à Gracis Poetis describitur.
Date1585
SourceAntiqvarvm statvarvm vrbis Romae primvs et secvndvs liber (https://archive.org/details/antiqvarvmstatva121cava/page/n29/mode/2up)
AuthorGiovanni Battista de’Cavalieri