Named after Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, these feasts of classical Rome were known to be wildly drunken affairs. History painting, or taking subjects from the past, was popular with European painters of the late 19th century and was part of Girolamo Nerli’s formative academic training. This is one of five works he painted on the subject of these revels. Nerli was also influenced by the Italian Realists, the ‘Macchiaioli’ group of painters. This work is painted in a rapid, lively manner, which creates a sense of movement in the composition through the use of his distinctive bravura brush technique. Nerli was born in Siena and studied at the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence in the late 1870s. Having been in Australia, he arrived in Dunedin in 1889 where he exhibited at the ‘New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition’. Nerli opened his own art school and taught at Dunedin’s School of Art and Design. He left New Zealand for Europe in 1898 and subsequently died in Genoa.