3-011-754 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Recent discoveries in the buried city of Pompeii: statuette of Silenus, 1864. Engraving from a photograph '...placed at our disposal by the Rev. James Fletcher...great progress has been made in the task of bringing to light that abundant store of curious relics of antiquity which had remained for eighteen centuries buried in the ruins of Pompeii. The extent and importance of these operations, carried on under the direction of Cavaliere Fiorelli, with the advice of Signor Niccolini, the highest authority upon the subject, have been acknowledged throughout Europe by the students of Roman history and the connoisseurs of classic art...[The Silenus is one of] a pair of bronze statuettes, each about two feet in height, which have been found in different places among the ruins of the buried city. That of Silenus, bearing a tray on his head, is thought to have been a lamp-stand. It is remarkable that it shows the serpent and other Egyptian emblems'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.