Bacchic Revels

Johann Georg Platzer · c. 1740

Medium

Oil on copper

Original size

18.5 × 25.9 cm (7 1/4 × 10 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Bacchic Revels is a dazzling specimen of Rococo excess — a copper panel alive with flushed figures, swirling drapery, and the warm glow of torch and candlelight. Johann Georg Platzer was among the most accomplished small-scale painters of the eighteenth-century Austrian court, celebrated for his technically demanding preference for copper over canvas. That choice was deliberate: copper's non-absorbent surface allows paint to sit with extraordinary luminosity, producing the jewel-like depth and minute detail that define his style. In Bacchic Revels, that technique is pushed to its limits — dozens of revellers packed into an ornate interior, every face and fold rendered with watchmaker's precision. Platzer's paintings on copper were prized by aristocratic collectors across Europe during his lifetime, and the Art Institute of Chicago's example stands as one of the finest accessible works in his canon. Our hand-painted oil reproduction honours both the complexity of Platzer's composition and the luminous quality he achieved on the original copper ground, with each figure and each shimmer of reflected light rendered by hand using traditional oil pigments — bringing the warmth and intricacy of this exceptional Rococo scene into your space.