Sappho and Alcaeus is an 1881 oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist 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 paying 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 through 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 by John 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.
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SapphoandAlcaeus is an 1881 oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema. It is held by the Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore. The...
poetry, and a fifth-century red-figure vase by either the Dokimasia Painter or Brygos Painter includes SapphoandAlcaeus with barbitoi. Sappho mentions...
some gave precedence to Alcaeus instead. The canonic nine are traditionally divided into two groups, with Alcaeus, Sapphoand Anacreon, being 'monodists'...
part of Sappho's surviving poetry, is also well represented in Alcaeus' work (e.g. Alcaeus frr. 34, 42, 45, 308b, 362). Alcaeus frr. 38a and 141 use the...
her contemporary Alcaeus. Modern editions of Sappho also collect ancient "testimonia" which discuss Sappho's life and works. Sappho probably wrote around...
of Sappho 44". p. 54. Voigt, E. M. Sappho et Alcaeus. Polak & Gennep: Amsterdam, 1971. pg. 18 Campbell, David A. Greek Lyric I: SapphoandAlcaeus. Harvard...
Attic, Ionic, and Doric varieties), as well as many innovations. Aeolic Greek is widely known as the language of Sapphoand of Alcaeus of Mytilene. Aeolic...
poets like SapphoandAlcaeus from Lesbos, and Corinna from Boeotia. The name derives from Aeolus, the mythical ancestor of the Aeolians and son of Hellen...
different kinds, and can be of varying lengths. Some lyric meters were used for monody (solo songs), such as some of the poems of SapphoandAlcaeus; others were...
publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link) Page, Denys Lionel; Sappho; Alcaeus (1955). SapphoandAlcaeus; introduction to the study of ancient Lesbian poetry....
invented by Alcaeus, a lyric poet from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, about 600 BC. The Alcaic stanza and the Sapphic stanza named for Alcaeus' contemporary...
SapphoandAlcaeus in collaboration with Denys Page. His contributions to the fields of papyrology and Greek studies were many and substantial, and Eric...
extending citizenship to males of many classes and establishing the Ecclesia. 593 BC—Exile of SapphoandAlcaeus (Alkaios) of Mytilene in Sicily. 592 BC—Early...
Press. Alcæus of Mytilene (1982), "Fragment 34", in David A. Campbell (ed.), Sappho, Alcaeus. Greek Lyric, Volume I: SapphoandAlcaeus. Alcæus of Mytilene...
and became the centre of the island's prosperous eastern hinterland.[citation needed] Her most famous citizens were the poets SapphoandAlcaeusand the...
Horace or in other poets. The metre is not found in the fragments of SapphoandAlcaeus. The Sapphic stanza was one of the few classical quantitative meters...
(meter) and syncopation. This meter is used by the lyric poets Alcman, SapphoandAlcaeusand also in some of the choral songs of certain tragedies and comedies...
The Ode to Aphrodite (or Sappho fragment 1) is a lyric poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho, who wrote in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE...
the "Island of the Poets", alluding to renowned native poets like AlcaeusandSappho. Lesbos has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. The oldest artifacts...
more concerned with her agency than Alcaeus' is. While in Alcaeus, Paris is the "deceiver of his host", in Sappho his role is more of a passive object...
archaic Lesbian dialect found elsewhere in the works of SapphoandAlcaeus. Those who believe that Sappho did compose the poem argue that the evidence that...
above. The youthful Roman emperor Elagabalus, wearing a golden silk robe and tiara, watches the spectacle from a platform behind them, with other garlanded...
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