Sappho and Alcaeus

Sappho and Alcaeus: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Oil Painting - Sappho and Alcaeus

Keywords: Sappho, Alcaeus

Work Overview: Sappho and Alcaeus
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Date: 1881
Style: Romanticism
Genre: history painting
Media: oil, canvas
Dimensions: 122 x 66 cm
Location: Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, US

Sappho and Alcaeus is an 1881 oil painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It is held by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

The painting measures 66 by 122 centimetres (26 in × 48 in). It depicts a concert in the late 7th century BC, with the poet Alcaeus of Mytilene playing the kithara. In the audience is fellow Lesbian poet Sappho, accompanied by several of her female friends. Sappho is playing close attention to the performance, resting her arm on a cushion which bears a laurel wreath, presumably intended for the performer. The painting illustrates a passage by the poet Hermesianax, recorded by Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae ("The Philosophers' Banquet"), book 13, page 598.

The location, with tiers of white marble seating, is based on the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, but Alma-Tadema has replaced the original inscribed names of Athenians with the names of Sappho's friends. In the background, the Aegean Sea can be seen some trees.

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881, and depicted in William Powell Frith's A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, to the far right, being inspected byJohn Everett Millais. It was highly praised by critics: Punch described it as "marbellous". It was acquired by William Thompson Walters of Baltimore, and on his death in 1894 it was inherited by his son Henry Walters, who left it to the Walters Art Museum on his own death in 1931.

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," book 2, line 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.

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," book 2, line 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.

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Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Work Overview