{
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"tombstone": "Glaucus and Nydia, 1867. Lawrence Alma-Tadema (British, 1836\u20131912). Oil on wood panel; framed: 55.5 x 81 x 4.5 cm (21 7/8 x 31 7/8 x 1 3/4 in.); unframed: 39 x 64.3 cm (15 3/8 x 25 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, 1977.128",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Glaucus and Nydia",
"creation_date": "1867",
"creation_date_earliest": 1867,
"creation_date_latest": 1867,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 19th century"
],
"technique": "oil on wood panel",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 55.5 x 81 x 4.5 cm (21 7/8 x 31 7/8 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 39 x 64.3 cm (15 3/8 x 25 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.555,
"height_inch": 21,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"width": 0.81,
"width_inch": 31,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.875,
"depth": 0.045,
"depth_inch": 1,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.75
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.39,
"height_inch": 15,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.375,
"width": 0.643,
"width_inch": 25,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.3125
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed upper left: L. Alma Tadema 67",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 302666,
"title": "Year in Review: 1977",
"description": "Year in Review: 1977. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1977-January 22, 1978).",
"opening_date": "1977-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 198256,
"title": "The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection",
"description": "The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection. Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, CA (September 12, 2012-January 7, 2013); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-July 7, 2013).",
"opening_date": "2012-09-03T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Works of Lawrence Alma Tadema (1882-83), Grosvenor Gallery, London, United Kingdom, lent by the Marquis de Santurce (1867).",
"opening_date": null
},
{
"description": "Victorians in Togas: Paintings by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema from the Collection of Allen Funt. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (1973).",
"opening_date": "1973-01-01T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Ernest Gambart, London, United Kingdom, by commission of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1867",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Ernest Gambart [1814-1902], London, United Kingdom, after 1870 sold to Jos\u00e9 de Murrieta, alias Marquis de Santurce.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1867-1870",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Christie's, London, United Kingdom, April 7, 1883, lot 164, Marquis de Santurce sale, bought in)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1883",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Christie's, London, United Kingdom, March 30, 1895, lot 143, sold to Stephen Gooden & Fox)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1895",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "( Stephen Gooden & Fox, London. United Kingdom, sold to Thomas Agnew & Sons)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1895",
"sortorder": 7
},
{
"description": "(Thomas Agnew & Son, London, United Kingdom, January 15, 1917 sold to A.G. O'Neil)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1917",
"sortorder": 10
},
{
"description": "(Sotheby's Belgravia, Funt Collection Sale, November 6, 1973, lot 8, sold to Jules Brassner, New York.",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1973",
"sortorder": 13
},
{
"description": "Jules Brasser [1916-1999], New York, NY, sold to Mr. Noah Butkin",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": null,
"sortorder": 14
},
{
"description": "Mr. Noah Butkin [1918-1980],Cleveland, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1977",
"sortorder": 15
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1977-",
"sortorder": 16
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Alma-Tadema, one of the most popular Victorian painters, became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire. His vision of the ancient world was constantly reproduced on film in Hollywood.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "\"It was one of the few moments in her brief and troubled life that it was sweet to treasure.\" Weaving a rose garland as a present for her beloved master Glaucus, the blind servant Nydia resists speaking of her love for him. The scene is based on Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's enormously popular historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii (published in 1835), a melodramatic epic set in ancient Roman times, which culminates with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Responding to the 19th-century appetite for things antique, the artist filled his historical scenes with depictions of Roman frescoes and statuary. Dutch by birth, Alma-Tadema made this picture in Brussels for a London art dealer. But the demand for such paintings became so great that he moved to England, where he achieved great financial and social success.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60473273"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1977.128-glaucus-and-nydia"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": null,
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Forbes, Christopher. Victorians in Togas. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1973.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: no. 8",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: P. 5-7, Vol. I, no. 2",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Gardner Coates, Victoria C., Kenneth D. S. Lapatin, and Jon L. Seydl. The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Alma-Tadema, Lawrence, Elizabeth Prettejohn, and Peter Trippi. Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity. Munich ; London ; New York : Prestel, 2016.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and mentioned: p.21, fig. 5.",
"url": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1977.128",
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"date_created": "2008-10-27T19:00:13",
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"creditline": "Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin",
"image_credit": null,
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"athena_id": 148971,
"creators": [
{
"id": 2954,
"description": "Lawrence Alma-Tadema (British, 1836\u20131912)",
"extent": null,
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"role": "artist",
"biography": "While the artist was christened Lourens Tadema, his name changed several times. His godfather's name, Alma, was prefixed to his family name, and when he moved to Antwerp in 1852 he changed Lourens to Laurens and then anglicized it to Lawrence after his move to London. In 1852 he entered the Antwerp Academy, where his taste for subjects concerning the early history of France and Belgium was cultivated. This interest was further developed during his study with the history painter Baron Henri Leys (1815-1869), whom he assisted on the frescoes in Antwerp's City Hall. He married Pauline Gressin (1837-1869) in 1863 and went on a honeymoon to Italy. Alma Tadema's visit to Pompeii refocused his attention from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean. After several paintings of Egyptian subject matter, one earning him a gold medal at his first Paris Salon (1864), he eventually concentrated on ancient Roman history. Meeting the influential London-based art dealer Ernest Gambart (1814-1902) turned out to be a crucial event in his career, and Alma Tadema provided Gambart with a group of sought-after paintings. Alma Tadema's often trivial genre subjects set in ancient times distinguished him from more traditional and idealizing neoclassicists such as Ingres (q.v.) or Leighton (q.v.). His formidable skills in depicting various materials, notably marble, formed the basis of his fame. Portraying the mysterious Romans as people of flesh and blood added to his work's popularity. His wife, who gave birth to twodaughters, Laurense (b. 1865) and Anna (b. 1867), died in 1869. He moved from Brussels to London in 1870, as his popularity there was steadily growing, and became a naturalized British citizen. Another reason for his move to London may have been that he had met there a young woman, Laura Epps (1852-1909), who would become his student and eventually his second wife in 1871. In his two successive London studio-houses, decorated in historicizing styles, he often entertained the social elite that formed his clientele. Around 1877 the Dutch art critic Carel Vosmaer started collecting information on his friend Alma Tadema's work in preparation for a catalogue raisonn\u00e9 that survives only in manuscript form. In 1879 Alma Tadema became a member of the Royal Academy, and in 1882 the Grosvenor Gallery organized a major retrospective of his work. Every critic agreed that his work displayed superior craftsmanship and archaeolog-ical correctness, although objections were raised as well, for example, against his surfeit attention to details, or his sole focus on a decadent Rome instead of addressing higher moral issues. Toward the end of his career, Alma Tadema also painted many portraits and designed stage decorations for plays. In addition to being knighted in England in 1899, he received many honorary titles through-out Europe. In 1913, one year after his death, the Royal Academy honored the artist by mounting a large exhibition of his work. Poorly visited, this homage paradoxically marked the beginning of a steep decline in the artist's reputation.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1836",
"death_year": "1912",
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1977-10-20T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1867,
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"date_text": "1867",
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"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
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"alternate_titles": [],
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"updated_at": "2026-08-07 11:07:04.088000"
}
}