Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, c. 1616–17

A faun, a merry woodland creature from old myths, climbs a tree to reach a bunch of grapes, while playful children tug at him and tease him. Below, a big cat stretches up toward the fruit, one child tumbles over it, and another cheekily sticks out his tongue.

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Did you know?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was still under twenty when he made this group with his father, the sculptor Pietro Bernini.
All the figures, the tree and the animal were carved from one narrow block of marble.
The scene shows a merry revel of the followers of Bacchus, the god of wine – that is what the word Bacchanal means.
For many years the sculpture stayed in Bernini's own house in Rome.
Later the sculptor's name was forgotten, and only in the 1970s did experts recognise it again as an early work by Bernini.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought the sculpture in 1976.

About the artist

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) was born in Naples, the son of the sculptor Pietro Bernini, moved with his family to Rome as a boy and lived there until his death at 81.

He was the leading sculptor and architect of the Baroque age, famous for marble figures full of movement and feeling, such as Apollo and Daphne.

For St Peter's in Rome he designed the huge bronze canopy over the altar and the great colonnades that embrace the square in front of the church.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini ›

Where it is today: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Museum page