PLATE XLVIII
The Enthroned Dionysos
Dionysos is seated on an elaborate marble or ivory throne, studded with jewels, and behind him rises a sacred pillar. The god, with his emblems (garland, thyrsos, and kantharos) is depicted as a bibulous-looking celebrant of his own rites. On the ground at his right is a tympanon supported in an oblique position, and at his left a panther, highly suggestive of the Oriental associations of the Dionysiac cult. The painting is remarkable for its blending of soft flesh-tints, dainty blues of the drapery, and the delicate white of the throne, against an unrelieved background of rich red. From a wall-painting in the Casa del Naviglio, Pompeii (Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkmäler der Malerei des Altertums, No. 1).
