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The Dancing Satyr - A Lost Bronze of Praxiteles?

Mazara del Vallo is a small fishing village on the southwestern tip or toe of Sicily. Until a few years ago Mazara was known, if it all, for its fish and grapes, and its mix of Greek, Roman, Arab and Christian cultures. Muslim armies landed in 827 A.D. and made it a trading center. The Arabs ruled it until 1072, when the Normans under King Roger invaded and took over. But the narrow streets of its Arab quarter still exist, as do Arab names of places, food, and people. Norman churches with Arab features can still be seen, alongside Christian churches in Byzantine and Baroque styles. But one of them, the Church of Sant'Egidio, is now devoted mainly to its Museo del Satiro, its Museum of the Satyr.

Thanks to art thieves, Mazara's Museo had little to show but a few antique pots and architectural fragments until its star, the Dancing Satyr, appeared and made it famous. Eight years ago, after lying for 24 centuries in murky obscurity 1600 feet deep on the seabed near Mazara's coast, this bronze statue was dragged to the surface by the town's fishermen. First, in 1997, a leg appeared in their nets. A year later, the head and torso came up. Though still missing both arms and his right leg, he was in amazingly good condition.

His pointed, goatlike ears said "satyr." And his splendid flung-back head with flying hair and his backward-bending left leg proclaimed him a dancing satyr, caught in mid-flight leaping through the air in an orgiastic frenzy, while holding a thyrsos, a pine-cone-topped wand, in one hand and a wine-cup in the other.

This is just the sort of poetry-in-motion that Praxiteles sought to create from marble and bronze in the early 4th century BC. But is the Dancing Satyr really by Praxiteles? One who has no doubts is Paolo Moreno, a professor of ancient Greek art and history: "I am confident that this work is by Praxiteles. It has the artistry and technical excellence that were his trademark." Others are not so sure. They think it may be a Roman copy, noting the satyr has a high percentage of lead and shows other signs of Roman bronze-casting methods. So far, technical analysis yields a date for it anywhere from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC.

Does the satyr's frenzied, whirling Dionysian dance. especially as shown by the ecstatic expresssion on his face, look like any of his other satyrs? We know Praxiteles was fond of sculpting satyrs. But did he ever arrange them in groups? Some say this one, larger than life at over 7 feet tall, belonged to a whole troupe of satyrs and nymphs and fauns and other mythic creatures who gamboled and drank and danced and revelled around their wine-god, Dionysos. Why they think this I don't know. I would love to see the evidence. Something besides paintings of Dionysian orgies on Greek vases.

Experts from Italy's Institute of Art Restoration spent nearly five years cleaning the sculpture and fitting it with a new internal steel structure to strengthen it. If you look closely at the blue-green, still oxidized copper of the figure in the photo below, you can see what must be an early stage of restoration, with a black strut inserted through the broken right thigh for support. (But if you compare the fuller brow and right arm here with the golden bronze state of the statue in the top photo, you'll see what looks like a further loss of bronze during restoration.) That strut was later replaced with a two-piece steel tube that let the figure be rotated. A friend of mine who lost his right leg in Vietnam plays tennis on a titanium peg that looks and works much like it.

On April 1, 2003, the satyr finally went on public display, in Italy's Parliament building in Rome, where it caused a sensation not seen since the discovery of the Riace Bronzes, those two splendid warriors found in the sea in 1972.

After two months in Rome, it was sent back to Mazara, whose citizens had seen too many of their treasures carted off, and vowed they would never lend it out. But when Japan begged them to lend it for their World Expo 2005, they relented and sent it. For 6 months it attracted 10,000 visitors a day, who voted it Expo's most popular exhibit.

And the saga of the satyr from the sea continues. Two weeks ago, the March 16 bulletin of ANSA [Arqueologia Náutica e Subaquática, Navios e Naufrágios / Underwater Archaeology News, Ships and Shipwrecks] announced: "The hunt is on for the 'brothers'" of the Dancing Satyr. "We are sure there are similar objects down there," said Sicily's maritime culture chief Sebastiano Tusa. Aided by special dredging probes used by the Italian fuels group ENI to lay undersea cables, they've already found the wreck of a 4th century AD Roman ship that may be raised by the time you've read this. Who knows, maybe they will eventually find the satyr's true "brothers" -- the other bronze fauns and satyrs that supposedly joined this one in celebrating the drunken revels of Dionysos?

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Sources and interesting Dancing Satyr Links:

* photos and info on the Sicilian town of Mazara del Vallo, with a link to & 5 photos from the 12 before-and-after photos of the Satyr's restoration
www.uciim.sicilia.it/englishmazara.htm
here

* 12 before and after photos of the Satyr's restoration. The blurbs are in Italian, but are not really needed. My closeups of the head are from this group.
http://www.uciim.sicilia.it/SATIRO/raccolta_foto_SATIRO.htm
here

*A summary of the problems and steps in the restoration of the Satyr, by the Director of Italy's Center for Ancient Restoration. Somewhat technical, but useful. In Italian and English; scroll down for the English translation.
http://www.icr.beniculturali.it/Restauri/satiro.htm
here

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