Dancing Girl (Ariadne?) with a Panther

In this drawing, Bacchus is present in a different manner from that in so many others of Thorvaldsen’s works. There is no sign here of his usual attributes: vines and thyrsus. Bacchus is seen instead in the shape of a panther, which links the name of Ariadne to the female figure and determines the setting as Naxos. Thorvaldsen made the drawing as a sketch for a sculpture commissioned by Prince Esterházy, but he omitted the panther in the final version. Hence the more sober title of the sculpture: The Dancing Girl.