In 1960, at the height of his artistic maturity, Picasso enjoyed measuring himself against the masters of the past: Velázquez, Goya, Delacroix and, in particular, Poussin, whose works he had the opportunity to see at the Louvre.

Picasso focused particularly on the 1636 painting The Triumph of Pan : he produced a sketch, a gouache and a lithograph on the theme. The Hommage à Bacchus thus forms part of a particularly rich body of work on the theme of pleasure and the excesses of the Dionysian festival, which contributes to the construction of Picasso’s erotic imagination inspired by antiquity. Just as with Poussin, in Picasso’s work the erotic imagination contributes to a broader reflection on the origin of the creative act.

The theme of the Bacchanalia, of intoxication and Dionysian chaos, has fascinated artists since the Renaissance. Bacchanalia are festivals in honour of Bacchus where drinking, laughter, song and dance go hand in hand with carnal pleasure. The Bacchic processions, made up of satyrs, nymphs and cupids, celebrate, alongside the god, the fertility of nature, whilst expressing the liberating intoxication of amorous impulses. In Picasso’s work, this theme, alongside that of the funfair, represents one of his most fruitful subjects. Picasso’s permanent settlement in the South of France from 1947 onwards also led to a return to Mediterranean themes and to his cultural heritage.