This golden Grecian theatric mask depicts Bacchante who participated in the Dionysiac festivities of mysteries. His ribbon tied hair garlanded with ivy and flowers is arranged in snail-shell ringlets in the manner adopted by the youthful Dionysus, when in the guise of India Sage or Gymnosophist. It would appear to be one of the mounts which originally embellished in the French manner, the dining-room mantelpiece, which the Connoisseur Thomas Hope, (d.1831), designed about 1801 for his Duchess Street mansion/museum of antiquities. They served as 'herm' heads on gold bracket jambs, which displayed 'poetic' garland bearing nike on the sides and terminated in Bacchic panther feet. The mantel supported John Flaxman's Greek style bust of Philip Hope, (d.1839), which was placed in the manner of a charioteer between two life size heads of horses. Two engravings of the chimneypiece and one of the Bacchante mask, shown wearing berry clusters in place of flowers and lacking the pearled necklace, appear in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807, pls. L, LI and XXXVII. In view of its quality, and of Hope's respect for the London based French 'Bronze and Ormolu manufacturer' Alexis De Caix (d.1819), of 15 Rupert Street, London, who also worked for George, Prince of Wales, Later King George IV, it seems likely that he executed this mask. Related masks appear on Hope's krater vase also attributed to De Caix and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Duchess Street was demolished in the mid-19th century, but as an Egyptian style mount from another chimney-piece has survived attached to its original marbelised jamb, it is possible that the dining room chimneypiece was also executed in marbelised wood.