This small painting, housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, comes from the House of the Deer (Casa dei Cervi), one of the most luxurious domus in Herculaneum. It was part of a series of seven panels that decorated the oecus, a room used for receiving guests and leisure.
The scene depicts a statuette of Dionysus, draped in a long robe and holding a thyrsus in his left hand, while raising a kantharos (a wine-drinking cup) with his right arm. At his feet, laid out on reddish ground, are votive elements: an olive branch, a silver kantharos turned over with wine remnants, the severed head of a young goat, and a bronze jug with a trilobed mouth.
Behind the statue stands a bronze tray with movable handles, on which are arranged a pinecone and a terracotta bowl filled with figs and dates—symbols of ritual offering. The composition is designed to transform the secular and gastronomic value of food into a votive offering to the deity, a recurring theme in Herculaneum’s art, where the imagery of food takes on religious and symbolic meaning.