The Cymbal Player

Artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dronrijp, Netherlands, 1836 - 1912)

Date1872

Mediumwatercolour on board

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 105.7 cm, Width: 64 cm
Frame: Height: 125.7 cm, Width: 91.5 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1936.

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG002211

Keywords

About MeIt is to the artistic milieu of painters such as Lord Leighton and Edward John Poynter that Alma-Tadema can most closely be compared. Although all three used classicising themes, they tended to revert to a Victorian use of narrative and subject matter.

The model for this painting was Laura Theresa Epps, the artist's future second wife. For the Roman domestic scenes, Alma-Tadema's favourite subjects were reading poetry, bathing and resting and as in the case of this watercolour, religious festivities. In 'The Cymbal Player' a young priestess sounds her cymbals as a procession enters the courtyard. The marble altar and brazier on the right are copied from the ones in the Museo Nazionale, Naples and the statue in the courtyard is the Satyr in the Uffizi, Florence.

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The artist's future second wife was the model for this image of a Roman priestess sounding her cymbals as a procession enters the courtyard.