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The vintage festival

The vintage festival
 1871

Medium
oil on wood panel
Measurements
51.0 × 119.0 cm
Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.l.: Alma Tadema 1871
Accession Number
p.312.7-1
Department
International Painting
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1888
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work

The vintage festival is set in the villa of Marcus Holconius Rufus, a prominent citizen of Pompeii at the time of that city’s destruction in AD 79. This work is one of the astonishingly vivid recreations of daily life in the ancient Roman and Greek worlds that brought the Dutch-born Alma-Tadema – who had migrated to England from Belgium in 1870 – both critical acclaim and financial security. Alma-Tadema’s Dionysian vision of Roman splendour is a quintessential example of the archaeologically informed taste for classicism that prevailed in Victorian England.

Subjects (general)
History and Legend Human Figures
Subjects (specific)
classicism columns (architectural elements) festivals musicians Pompeii (deserted settlement) processions togas (mantles) villas
Provenance
Commissioned from the artist by Ernest Gambart (1814–1902), 1871; Gambart collection, London and Spa, Belgium, until 1886; from whom purchased by Agnew’s (dealer), London, 14 July 1886 (stock no. 4137); with Agnew’s, until 1888; from where purchased, by Alfred Taddy Thompson and Sir James McCulloch, for the NGV, 22 May 1888.

Frame
Original, maker unknown

Frame

The broad scale Academy frame on The Vintage Festival, can be compared to the frame on Orchardson, The first cloud.
These frames, though richly ornamented, are essentially linear in form. Strongly contrasted to Baroque frames, their heritage is in the Classical Revival and the Italian Renaissance.

The painting was cleaned in 2007.

Framemaker
Unknown - 19th century
Date
c.1871
Materials

timber, composition, gold leaf