1894 painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Spring
is an 1894 oil-on-canvas painting by the Anglo-Dutch artist
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
, which has been in the collection of the
J. Paul Getty Museum
in
Los Angeles
,
California
, since 1972. The painting relates the Victorian custom of children collecting flowers on
May Day
back to an Ancient Roman spring festival, perhaps
Cerealia
or
Floralia
or
Ambarvalia
, although the details depicted in the painting do not correspond to any single Roman festival. It was the inspiration for the scene of Julius Caesar's triumphal entry into Rome in the 1934 film
Cleopatra
.
Description
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The tall, narrow painting depicts a procession of women and children along a Roman street and down some marble steps. Spectators cheer from the classical buildings of polychrome marble to either side, some throwing down flowers. The participants in the procession are garlanded with bright flowers, with some also bearing baskets of flowers or branches of blossom, and other playing musical instruments: a flute, pan pipes, and tambourines. The choice of flowers in the painting seems to be driven more by aesthetic and colour considerations than the symbolic meanings of the Victorian
language of flowers
.
Detail of musicians and procession
Towards the rear of the procession is a bearded priest holding a metal jug, with other attendants carrying a casket, a torch, and a large portable ivory altar which is emerging from the building to the right. Other attendants bear two silver sculptures of a horned
satyr
with a child and fruit, and two more hold poles with a banner slung between, bearing a Latin fragment (then attributed to
Catullus
, known as Carmina Catulli 8): "Hunc lucum tibi dedico consecroque, Priape / qua domus tua Lampsacist quaque silva, Priape/ nam te praecipue in suis urbibus colit ora / Hellespontia ceteris ostreosior oris" (loosely translated: "This enclosure I dedicate and consecrate to thee,
Priapus
/ At
Lampsacus
where is thy home and sacred grove, Priapus / For thee specially in its coastal cities are you worshipped / Of
Hellespont
more abundant in oysters than all other coasts").
Many of the participants and spectators were modelled by Alma-Tadema's friends or members of his family.
[1]
They include the bearded composer
George Henschel
and his daughter Helen, high on a balcony to the right. A bearded bust to the lower left may be a self-portrait of Alma-Tadema, beside the base of a column where the painting is signed and numbered: " L Alma Tadema Op CCCXXVI".
The surrounding scene is an architectural
capriccio
, not a single known location but rather combining parts of known Roman buildings from several different locations=. To the left rear is a
triumphal arch
, with an inscription taken from the
Arch of Trajan
at
Benevento
, 130 mi (210 km) southeast of Rome; its
spandrel
is decorated with a
river god
based on the
Arch of Constantine
, but unusually accompanied by a sheep and bull (for
Aries
and
Taurus
, denoting April and May). A building to the left has a frieze showing the battle of
Lapiths
and
Centaurs
. Visible to the rear are two bronze
equestrian statues
, based on marble statues from
Pompeii
.
The painting measures 178.4 cm × 80.3 cm (70.2 in × 31.6 in) and retains its original, heavy gilded architectural frame, also designed by the artist, with pilasters and a triangular pediment. The frame above the painting displays its title, "Spring", and the bottom of the frame has four lines of poetry from
Algernon Charles Swinburne
's 1865 poem "Dedication" written in honour of the painter
Edward Burne-Jones
: "In a land of clear colours and stories, / In a region of shadowless hours, / Where earth has a garment of glories / And a murmur of musical flowers".
Reception
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Alma-Tadema worked on the painting for four years. It was completed in late 1894, and bought by the German banker
Robert von Mendelssohn
[
de
]
. It was exhibited at the 1895
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
, at the 1899
Große Berliner Kunstausstellung
in Berlin, and at the 1900
Exposition Universelle
in Paris. It was a commercial success for Alma-Tadema, who sold many reproductions.
The original painting was sold through
Thomas Agnew & Sons
in London, and acquired by
Charles Yerkes
in 1901. After his death in 1910, it was sold at the
American Art Association
, and then bought in 1912 from the dealer Henry Reinhardt Galleries in Chicago by
Thomas F. Cole
. It was exhibited at the inaugural exhibition at the new building of the
Toledo Museum of Art
in 1912, and later acquired by Edwin H. Fricke. It was the inspiration for the scene of
Julius Caesar
's
triumphal entry
into Rome in
Cecil B. DeMille
's 1934 film
Cleopatra
.
Along with other works from Fricke's collection, including Alma-Tadema's 1906 painting
Ask Me No More
, it was sold at
Parke-Bernet
in New York in 1945. It was acquired through Lewis A. Stone by Mrs. Edward Lane, and sold the same year to
Hulett C. Merritt
, in
Pasadena
. It was bought from his estate sale at Ames Art Galleries in 1956 by Victor Emmanuel Wenzel von Metternich, and acquired from his estate sale at
Sotheby's
in Los Angeles in 1972 by the
J. Paul Getty Museum
.
References
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