Drunken Silenus holding a cup aloft into which a Satyr pours wine

Jusepe de Ribera (called Lo Spagnoletto)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ribera's etchings helped him to establish a reputation far beyond Naples, where he lived for most of his life. This etching is often considered his greatest. It relates to a painting he had produced two years earlier now in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. Occupying the foreground Silenus is crowned by Pan, who is identified by his leopard skin cloak and pan pipes and staff at his feet. Silenus raises his cup to accept another drink of wine. His action is humorously echoed by the two infants at right engaged in similar activities, one of which has passed out. The braying donkey at right adds to the hilarity of the composition. For his composition, Ribera drew inspiration from the prints of other artists, including Mantegna's pair of Bacchanals (29.44.15) and Annibale Carracci's Drunken Silenus (27.78.1.150).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art