Silenus with the Infant Dionysus

Silenus was the oldest of the god Dionysus' followers, a pot-bellied, snub-nosed drinker who is usually seen reeling along in the god's train. In this statue he is sober and careful. Dionysus is still a baby, and the old man holds him against his chest and looks down at him.

The theme of a grown figure carrying the infant god caught the imagination of Greek sculptors in the 4th century BC. At Olympia the travel writer Pausanias saw a Hermes holding the little Dionysus, which he said was by Praxiteles, and in 1877 German excavators found that very statue lying in the temple of Hera, where he had described it.

The original behind this marble belongs to the last quarter of the 4th century BC, and some scholars connect it with Lysippos or his circle. The best-known replica is in the Louvre. The Munich copy stands almost two metres tall.