Bacchante with Tambourine and Child at The Louvre, Paris

cults3d

This statue was commissioned by Marc-René d'Argenson, the marquis of Voyer and governor of Vincennes, an amateur member of the academy. Augustin Pajou sculpted it in 1730. In Greek mythology, female followers known as maenads or bacchantes served Dionysus, a major deity who was also known as Bacchus in Roman pantheon. They were key members of Thiasus, the god's entourage. The term "maenad" literally translates to "those who are out of their minds." Maenads were often depicted as being driven by Dionysus into a state of frenzied ecstasy through a combination of dancing and intoxication. During these rituals, maenads wore fawn skins and carried thyrsi, long sticks wrapped in ivy or vine leaves with pinecones at the tip. They also wore ivy wreaths on their heads or bull helmets to honor their god and often handled snakes. In real life, the maddened women of ancient Greece were mythologized as nurses who took care of Dionysus in Nysa: Lycurgus chased these frenzied nurses through the holy hills of Nysa, causing them to drop their sacred objects. The women would go into the mountains at night and perform strange rituals. In Euripides' play The Bacchae, Theban maenads killed King Pentheus after he banned worship of Dionysus. Dionysus lured Pentheus into the woods where maenads tore him apart. His corpse was mutilated by his own mother Agave who mistakenly believed it to be that of a lion and tore off its head. A group of maenads also killed Orpheus.