On view
Loevner Artwalk
Mosaic pavement depicting the drinking contest between Herakles and Dionysos,
early 3rd century CE
Roman
This mosaic was uncovered in a suburb of Antioch known as Seleucia, where it was displayed on the floor of an elite villa named by archaeologists the House of the Drinking Contest. Created from small pieces of stone and glass known as tesserae, the mosaic depicts a drinking contest between Herakles,a hero from Greek myth, and Dionysos, the god of wine. Herakles is shown in the center of the mosaic with his lion skin and club, while Dionysos reclines on the right, wearing a wreath and holding up a drinking horn. The design of this floor suggests that it was intended for a dining room, known as a triclinium, with dining couches set up over the geometric portions. The elaborate architectural frame, the raised curtain, and the use of shadows create a sense of physical space, inviting the diners to look down into the scene and join in the contest.
Carolyn Laferrière, Associate Curator of Ancient Mediterranean Art, Princeton University Art Museum
More About This Object
Information
early 3rd century CE
Turkey, , Seleucia
- Doro Levi, "A mosaic from Antioch for the Museum", Bulletin of the Department of Art and Archaeology (Jun., 1941): p. 11ff., p. 11ff
- Richard Stillwell, ed., Antioch-on-the-Orontes III: the excavations 1937–1939, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941)., cat. no. 198, pp. 167-168, pl. 41 and 45
- Doro Levi, Antioch mosaic pavements, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947).
- Bianchi Bandinelli, translated by Peter Green, Rome: the late empire, (New York: G. Braziller, 1971)., p. 333
- Ernst Kitzinger, Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in mediterranean art, 3rd-7th century, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977)., fig. 87 (illus.), in situ fig. 88 (illus.); pp. 50-51
-
Frances F. Jones, "Antioch mosaics in Princeton", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 40, no. 2 (1981): p. 2–26.
, fig. 16, p. 9 (illus) - John J. Dobbins, "Pictures for the floor: the Virginia Museum's Roman mosaics", Arts in Virginia 22, no. 1 (1982): p. 2-13., pp. 2-13: "Drinking Contest" Illustrated p.8, fig. 8 and p. 10, fig. 10 (in situ)
-
Martin Henig, ed., A handbook of Roman art: a survey of the visual arts of the Roman world, (Oxford: Phaidon, 1983).
, colour plate 8 (between pp. 96 and 97), and mention on p. 120, chapter 5 on Mosaics by D.J. Smith -
Samuel Edgerton, The heritage of Giotto's geometry: interactions of art and science on the eve of the scientific revolution, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
, p. 57, illustration 2.7 - Christine Kondoleon, Domestic and divine: Roman mosaics in the House of Dionysos (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). , p. 56-57, fig. 30
- Margaret Schatkin, "Culture Wars," Christian history 13, no. 4 (1994): p.33-35., p. 33
- B. Holzmann, ed., L'Art de l'antiquite: 1., Les origines de l'Europe, (Paris: Gallimard: Réunion des Musées nationaux, 1995). , p. 505, fig. 619 (color)
- Oswyn Murray and Manuela Tecuşan, eds., In Vino Veritas, (London: British School at Rome in association with American Academy at Rome, Swedish Institute at Rome, Istituto Universitario Orientale Napoli, and Università di Salerno, 1995). , p. 255-56, fig. 3
- F. Cimok, ed., Antioch mosaics: a corpus, (Istanbul: A Turizm Yayinlari, 1995)., p. 88-89
-
Thesaurus cultus et rituum antiquorum [ThesCRA], (Basel: Fondation pour le lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae; Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2004).
, - Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 189 (illus.)
-
Umberto Pappalardo and Rosaria Ciardiello, Greek and Roman mosiacs, (New York: Abbeville Press Publishers. 2012).
, fig. 20, p. 252-3 (illus.), 320 - Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 411
- Scott Redford, Antioch on the Orontes: early explorations in the city of mosaics, (Istanbul: Koç Universitesi Yayınları, 2014)., p. 44, 168; cat. no. 20; fig. 4, pl. 20
