National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Symbols of Bacchus as God of Wine and the Theater
  • Provenance
  • Bibliography

Overview

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Inscription

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Marks and Labels

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Provenance

Discovered 1941 or 1942 in El Jem, Tunisia; possibly on deposit at the Alaoui Museum (Musée National du Bardo), Tunis, before 1961;[1] presented 4 May 1961 to the National Gallery of Art by Habib Bourguiba, president of the Tunisian Republic.

[1] Inaugurated in 1888 as the Alaoui Museum in the Bardo palace, this institution was renamed the Musée National du Bardo in 1956, when Tunisia became independent. See Mohammed Yacoub, Musée du Bardo; Musée Antique (Tunis, 1970): 5. An information sheet from the Tunisian Embassy, dated 3 May 1961, in NGA curatorial files, refers to the mosaic as "from the Alaoui Museum." Margaret A. Alexander has found that it was never accessioned there and that the museum has no record of ever owning it. Conceivably it may once have been on deposit there; a postcard in Professor Alexander's collection, of unknown date, reproduces a detail of the ivy-crowned mask on the right side of the Washington mosaic with the caption "MUSEE NATIONAL DU BARDO/ 59-Masque de Silène/ (Mosaïque El-Djem)."

Exhibition History

Bibliography

1944
Truillot, A., In "Séance de la Commission de l'Afrique de Nord." In Bulletin Archéologique du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques. 1941-1942, vols. unnumbered, (1944): 292-293, record of discovery.
1963
Foucher, Louis. La Maison de la Procession Dionysiaque à El Jem. Paris, 1963: 103, 126 n. 206.
1972
Musurillo, Reverend Herbert. "The Roman Mosaic from Tunisia in the National Gallery." Unpublished paper, Fordham University, November 1972, in NGA curatorial files.
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Alexander, Margaret A. "Dionysiac Mosaic from El Jem in the National Gallery of Art, Washington." Unpublished paper, received 1985, in NGA curatorial files.

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