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Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileThe relief depicts a woman in flowing, diaphanous robes captured in a moment of ecstatic movement, with her head tilted back and her hands lifting the hem of her dress. The figure is carved into a slab of highly figured, striated marble whose natural veining creates a sense of dynamic energy around the dancer. This decorative element is part of the 'all'antica' ornamental style developed for the suburban villa of the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi.
This figure reflects the High Renaissance fascination with the 'divine frenzy' of classical antiquity, a concept central to Neoplatonic thought regarding the soul's ascent through music and dance. The synthesis of pagan motifs with contemporary aesthetics served to illustrate the humanist belief in a universal harmony underlying both the ancient and modern worlds.
Raphael
The decorative program of the Villa Farnesina was designed and executed by Raphael and his workshop.
Marsilio Ficino
His Neoplatonic commentaries on the 'divine madness' of the Muses and Bacchus inform the Renaissance understanding of ecstatic classical dance.
Object
Oil on panel
decorative
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Bas-relief sur le socle d'un candélabre (Villa Farnesina, Rome)
800 × 1200 px
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.