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Alma-Tadema’s Vintage Festival

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The Vintage Festival, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Link is to zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the National Gallery of Victoria.

This is another of Alma-Tadema’s stunning evocations of life in classical Italy, in this case, a festival in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. The enlarged versions show Alma-Tadema’s technique, more textural and painterly than one might assume.

ALma-Tadema painted two versions of the painting at the same time, a larger one, now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg (image on Wikimedia Commons) was placed on display; and this one was used by engraver Auguste-Thomas-Marie Blanchard to create a popular engraving.