Meet St. Petersburg's 2,200-Year-Old Resident

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Copper lips. A pensive gaze. Serpentine tresses adorned with an ivy wreath. Meet Dionysus.

Over the summer, the Museum of Fine Arts installed an extremely rare 2,200-year-old Greek bronze head of the god of wine and theater in its gallery dedicated to ancient art. The hollow-cast, bronze sculpture is a long-term loan to the museum from a private collector. There are fewer than 30 surviving large-scale, Greek original bronze statues in the world, according to Michael Bennett, Ph.D., senior curator of Early Western Art. Of that number, only six are in the United States and the MFA has one of them on view.

As an expert in the field for more than 25 years, Bennett described the Head of Dionysus as one of the most important and finest examples of ancient Greek sculpture in existence today.

Displaying this work of art continues the MFA’s ongoing initiative to enhance the museum’s presentation of ancient art with outstanding long-term loans from private and institutional lenders, important acquisitions to the collection and world-class exhibitions
and programming focused on the art and culture of antiquity.

“We are the only encyclopedic art museum in the state of Florida, and some of our earliest and most important acquisitions were in the area of ancient art,” said Bennett. “The MFA has a significant commitment to presenting the very best in ancient art, but also undertaking real scholarship in the area. This is the first of many great things to come.”

In addition to displaying the Head of Dionysus, the MFA has other offerings designed to bring ancient art to the forefront at the museum:

• Five mosaics from ancient Antioch that are part of the MFA’s founding collection will be on display together for the first time. In 2018, the MFA conserved the mosaics in a project that captured the imagination of the city and drew visitors to the museum’s outdoor conservation lab.
• The exhibition Ancient Theater and the Cinema will be presented in the upstairs gallery from Nov. 9 to April 5, with the Head of Dionysus serving as the centerpiece of the show. The exhibition will present images from ancient theater in Greek vase painting in dialogue with film stills from classic cinema.

The museum if located at 225 Beach Drive N.E.

Hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.–8 p.m. on Thursday; and noon–5 p.m. Sunday. Regular admission is $20 for adults; $15 for those 65 and older, Florida educators, college students and active duty military; and $10 for students 7 and older. Children under 7 and museum members are admitted free. Admission is $10 on Thursdays after 5 p.m.