The Flute Concert by the French painter Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-88). It's evident that the artist and his potential buyers had visited Pomeii and studied there the architecture and especially the frescoes. So the painting is above all a nice reconstruction of a Pompeiian villa.
young Russians & 1917 Revolution
7 hours ago
It looks like a mid-late 19th century cultural salon in Paris, Berlin or Vienna (for example), but set in Roman costumes and Roman architecture. I love Boulanger's work.
ReplyDeleteThat's absolutely right and maybe one fundamental insight: History painting was always about the present age of the artists. History exists only as costume and decoration.
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