Drunk but Tender: Silenus with the Infant Dionysus

This sculpture, showing the infant Dionysus cradled in someone's arms, was carved in ancient Greece but discovered in Rome. The baby is Dionysus, the future god of wine, and the figure holding him is Silenus — his tutor and guardian. Silenus is famous for being perpetually drunk, and while that intoxication comes through in the sculpture, there's also something genuinely tender and human in the way he cradles the infant so affectionately.

This kind of emotional, human warmth is a hallmark of the Hellenistic style, a quality that recurs throughout ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. Like the other pieces in this room, it once belonged to the Borghese family before Napoleon acquired it and brought it to the Louvre.