Images/photos: Ashmolean Museum/Jonathan Russell (taken with permission when viewing work in storage).

• Title(s): A Head of a Bacchante (title on frame, Ashmolean Museum).
• Description: A head and shoulders facing the viewer, head tilted to the subject’s right, crown wreathed in ivy.
• Media: Oil on canvas (Ashmolean Museum).
• Dimensions: 46 x 41 cm (Ashmolean Museum).
• Signature/date/other text: “Annie L Swynnerton 1903” (Ashmolean Museum).
• History:
  • 1900? – May be the “little Bacchante head” exhibited at Earl’s Court (Gentlewoman, 18 Aug 1900).
  • 1903 – Signed, but signature (and date?) partly hidden behind frame; 1903 (Ashmolean Museum).
  • 1937 – “Presented by Mrs Richard Shute, 1937” (Ashmolean Museum).
• Location: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

The head is similar to that in A Dream of Italy.

The bacchantes were the female followers of the Roman god Bacchus (Greek Dionysus), who could dance to an ecstatic frenzy, heads wreathed in the god’s sacred plant, ivy, and who were capable of doing great violence to their enemies.

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Special thanks to the Ashmolean Museum for allowing viewing of the work while in storage.

Page last updated 13 May 2025.