Why it matters
Michelangelo's wine god sways drunkenly on a rocky outcrop, eyes rolling, while a little satyr eats the grapes slipping from his hand. Vasari saw in it 'both the slenderness of a young man and the fleshiness and roundness of a woman'.
Did you know?
- It was carved in 1496–1497.
- Cardinal Raffaele Riario commissioned it but rejected it; his banker Jacopo Galli bought it instead.
- With the Pietà, it is one of only two surviving sculptures from Michelangelo's first period in Rome.
Based on the Wikipedia article Bacchus (Michelangelo) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
