English: In 1870, the Dutch-born, Belgian-trained artist Alma-Tadema moved to London, where he found a ready market among the wealthy middle classes for paintings re-creating scenes of domestic life in imperial Roman times. In this work, however, he turns to early Greece to illustrate a passage by the ancient Greek poet Hermesianax (active ca. 330 BC) preserved in Atheneaus, Deipnosophistae, "Banquet of the Learned," xiii, 598. On the island of Lesbos (Mytilene), in the late 7th century BC, Sappho and her companions listen rapturously as the poet Alcaeus plays a "kithara". Striving for verisimilitude, Alma-Tadema copied the marble seating of the Theater of Dionysos in Athens, although he substituted the names of members of Sappho's sorority for those of the officials incised on the Athenian prototype.
Date
1881
date QS:P571,+1881-00-00T00:00:00Z/9
Medium
oil on panelmedium QS:P186,Q296955;P186,Q106857709,P518,Q861259
Dimensions
height: 66 cm (25.9 in); width: 122 cm (48 in)
dimensions QS:P2048,66U174728
dimensions QS:P2049,122U174728
; Framed height: 104.1 cm (41 in); width: 154.9 cm (61 in)
Empires Restored, Elysium Revisited: The Art of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, AJ Amsterdam; The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati; The Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis; The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1991-1992. Victorians: British Painting in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901. National Gallery of Art, Washington. 1997. A Magnificent Age: Masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2002-2004. Howard Pyle and the American Renaissance. Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford. 2007. Victorian Painting. The Fine Arts Society, London. 1977.
Credit line
Acquired by William T. Walters, after 1881
Inscriptions
[Signature] Lower right: L. Alma Tadema; [Inscription] Lower right: Op CCXXII
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== {{int:filedesc}} == {{Walters Art Museum artwork |artist = {{Creator:Lawrence Alma-Tadema}} |title = ''Sappho and Alcaeus'' |description = {{en|In 1870, the Dutch-born, Belgian-trained artist Alma-Tadema moved to London, wh...