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Wenceslaus Hollar

Young Bacchus Riding a Leopard Led By a Satyr Blowing a Horn

1647
Etching on ivory laid paper
14.3 × 21.2 cm (5.6 × 8.3 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Wenceslaus Hollar engraved book illustrations and several series of frieze-like bacchanal prints for his friend the Flemish painter Pieter van Avont, whose specialties also included devotional images of cherubs similar to ancient figures of the infant Eros. This sheet shows a wreathed infant Dionysos astride a leopard, an animal sacred to the god. The taller satyr blowing his horn at the front leads the procession onward in search of the next vineyard. Avont and Hollar may have been aware of Giuio Carpioni’s contemporaneous example of the children’s bacchanal (1942.348), with its more realistic, yet eerier figures.

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