Sarcophagus with Vintage Scene
Rome, 290-300 A.D.
Marble
Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, California
As in another vintage sculpure on a sarcophagus in Croatia, lions are separated from the joyous scene of naked boys gathering grapes. This example adds a vat where three boys dance on the grapes. The conceptual link between grapes, wine, and immortality was carried over into paleo-Christian symbolism.
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Read about wine symbolism at this page.
Photographed at the Getty Villa by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.