Baco or Los Borrachos (Bacchus or The Drunkards)

Artist Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes Spanish, 1746 - 1828

ArtistAfter Diego Velázquez Spanish, 1599 - 1660

Date1778

MediumEtching on laid paper, first edition of the third state

DimensionsSheet: 15 x 19 3/8 in. (38.1 x 49.2 cm)
Plate mark: 12 1/2 x 17 1/8 in.

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineGift in memory of Leon H. and Marie Buttlar Sparling by their family

Object number2008.20.25

On View

Not on view

Collections

Works on Paper

Signedsee inscription

InscribedEtched in the plate, the legend at the bottom outside the image area "Pintum de Don Diego Velazquez con figuras del tamaños natural en el Real Palacio de Madrid que representa un BACO fingido coronando algunos/borrachos: dibujada y grabada por D. Francisco Goya, Pintor Año de 1778." (at the right end of the text is a small leafy branch flourish). Verso: in pencil bottom ctr "APG 16400"

DescriptionAfter the painting in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid "The Triumph of Bacchus or the Drunkards" by Diego Velázquez (title from the Prado website).

An outdoor revelry with a contemporary Bacchus seated on a wine barrel at the center of a group of men. He is nude except for a drapery across his lap left leg and right thigh and wears a crown of grape leaves as do two others at the left of the image. The crowned figure, also apparently nude, behind Bacchus leans semi-prone on his right elbow and holds a wine glass in left. The other crowned figure is clothed and kneels/squats in the front left of the image with his back to the viewer. Bacchus is placing a similar crown on the head of a figure kneeling before him (identified as a soldier in descriptions of the original painting and carrying a dagger in the belt on his back waist). At Bacchus' feet are a ceramic pitcher and wine cup or glass laying on its side, probably similar to the stemmed one held by the left rear figure.

Five men grouped at the right, the left-most looks out at the viewer and holds up a bowl with wine, the front right figure kneels and holds up a cylindrical cup in his right hand and the figure at the far right carries a wine skin on his left shoulder.Exhibition History"Old Master Prints from the Sparling Family Collection", Hoopes Gallery, The Hyde Collection, February 28 - May 24, 2009.

"50 at 50: Five Decades of Collecting at the Hyde". Wood Gallery, Education Wing, Hyde House, The Hyde Collection. Glens Falls, January 16, 2013 -April 14, 2013ProvenanceNew York, NY, C. & J. Goodfriend (print dealers)
2007, Houston, TX, Tobin Sparling
2008, Glens Falls, NY, The Hyde Collection Trust