Sorry, copyright restrictions prevent us from showing this object here
In Tate Britain
Spotlights: Fairy Round
Free entry- Artist
- Richard Dadd 1817–1886
- Medium
- Oil on wood
- Dimensions
- Support: 356 × 241 mm
frame: 447 × 335 × 45 mm - Collection
- Lent from a private collection 1993
On long term loan - Reference
- L01705
Display caption
On the basis of the satyr in the lower right corner, this picture has been identified as a scene of Bacchic revelry. Satyrs were the goat-like followers of Bacchus, the god of wine, and were accompanied by frenzied female devotees known as Maenads. The goblet from which the satyr drinks is inscribed with Latin verse which does not quite make sense. It translates as ‘Each man then has his own unlucky fate both here and beyond – like must be added to like and one’s due paid to the appointed spirit’.
Gallery label, May 2007
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,661)
-
- emotions and human qualities(5,351)
-
- hedonism(8)
- eating and drinking(745)
-
- drinking(269)
- plants and flowers(2,735)
- food and drink(980)
-
- drink, wine(58)
- goblet(34)
- head / face(2,503)
- drunkenness(43)
- classical myths: creatures(142)
-
- satyr(28)
- Bacchanalia(13)
- Bacchante(12)
- inscriptions(6,698)
-
- Latin text(152)
You might like
-
Richard Dadd Wandering Musicians
c.1878 -
Richard Dadd The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke
1855–64 -
Richard Dadd The Flight out of Egypt
1849–50 -
Richard Dadd Portrait of a Young Man
1853 -
Charles Robert Leslie A Scene from Milton’s ‘Comus’
exhibited 1844 -
Edward Matthew Ward Scene from ‘David Garrick’
date not known -
Thomas Webster A Letter from the Colonies
1852 -
George Cruikshank The Worship of Bacchus
1860–2 -
Thomas Sidney Cooper Landscape and Cattle
1854 -
George Elgar Hicks Woman’s Mission: Comfort of Old Age
1862 -
Thomas Webster The Artist’s Father and Mother
exhibited 1844 -
James Bateman Highland Scene
1844 -
Edward Matthew Ward The South Sea Bubble, a Scene in ‘Change Alley in 1720
1847, exhibited 1847