A substantial grey schist stone panel carved to show a Dionysiac banquet scene depicting the celebration of the marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne. Dionysus has a cantharus cup in his right hand and is seated with his bride Ariadne on his knee. To the viewer's left, a man shoulders a leather wine skin while another man scoops up the wine from him in both hands. Both wear an exomis, Greek costume for lower-class men. Behind his back, a woman, probably a maenad is standing. All men depicted on this relief panel are bearded and they all wear Greek or Roman style costume.
Supplied with a custom-made stand.
 
Gandhara: Circa 2nd-3rd century AD.
 
Dimensions including stand 37.55 x 26 cms (14.7 x 10.25 ins).
Weight 9.2 kgs.
 
Provenance: Ex Professor Butt collection. Professor Butt established the Zahid Butt Kashmir Museum in Islamabad over a period of thirty-five years. Since childhood he was fascinated by the country of Kashmir, its art, peoples, and natural beauty. Continuing in his father's footsteps, himself an antiques lover and connoisseur, Professor Butt went onto form a vast collection of artworks and publish his travelogue of Kashmir 'Passage to Paradise, A lover in search of beauty'.
 
Literature: Compare with fig. 129 The Tokyo National Museum; inv. TC-740 (Photo: after Tokyo National Museum et al. 2003: as published by Tadashi Tanabe: The Dionysiac Imagery from the Mediterranean to Gandhara.
 
The scene is a recurring theme in the Buddhist art of Gandhara representing the transmission of Dionysiac imagery from the Roman and Hellenistic world into the local Buddhist context. Such scenes often feature figures engaged in drinking and feasting, and the overall composition shows a strong Hellenistic influence, common in Gandharan art from the 1st to 3rd century AD. In a Buddhist context, these "drinking scenes" are sometimes interpreted as representations of worldly pleasures that are contrasted with the spiritual path of the Buddha, or they may simply reflect the multicultural nature of the region. The figures in these panels often mix Hellenistic, Central Asian, and South Asian clothing styles. Such scenes were often used on the stair-risers of stupas, meaning worshippers would walk over them, which some scholars interpret as a symbolic.
 
Gandhara refers both to the Indian-Buddhist iconography which had been influenced by Greek artisans following the invasions of Alexander the Great, which came especially prominent from the time of Kanishka in the 2nd century till approximately the 5th century AD. as well as to the geographical ancient kingdom of Peshawar extending from the Swat valley to the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan.