# Bacchus and Ariadne [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [RICCI, Sebastiano]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 189 x 104 cm ## Commentary It was Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, who helped Theseus, whom she loved, to escape from the labyrinth with the aid of a ball of string, but all she had in return was to be abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. Here Bacchus came to her rescue. Classical representations show Ariadne asleep when Bacchus arrives, as described by Philostratus. But according to Ovid she was at that moment lamenting her fate, and Renaissance and later artists generally depict her awake. Bacchus took her jeweled crown and flung it into the heavens where it became a constellation. Ariadne was readily consoled by him and they were married shortly afterwards. ## Related artworks - [Allegory of Marcantonio Colonna's Victory at Lepanto]() - [Altar of St Gregory the Great]() - [Amor Virtutis Casts Ignorantia down into Orcus]() - [Angel of the Annunciation]() - [Apotheosis of Hercules]() - [Bacchanal in Honour of Pan]() - [Bacchanal in Honour of Pan]() - [Bathsheba at her Bath]() - [Bathsheba]() - [Battle of the Romans and the Sabines \(detail\)]() - [Battle of the Romans and the Sabines]() - [Cardinal Virtue]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()