Bacchantes Embracing (Bacchantes s'enlaçant)

Rodin executed more than half a dozen groups of embracing female lovers in poses of ecstasy and abandon, including Bacchantes Embracing and Damned Women (on view nearby). Although it is not known when this work was titled or by whom, the allusion to mythology placed these passionate figures at a temporal and conceptual remove, thus making the then-taboo subject more acceptable to a conservative audience. Interestingly, one of the women here is not even a bacchante (a follower of the wine god Bacchus), but rather a female faun, identified by her goatlike legs and cloven hooves.