This x - ray detects the numerous changes done to the painting. Although there are too many changes to list, there are many outlined figures visible on the right side of the painting to the left of the dark figure leaning against the wall, and the woman darkly dressed in the back appears to once held a sort of tray in her left hand. Many more changes can be seen in the image with a closer look and in the infrared and reflected lighting.
This infrared detail shows the change in feet positiong of the reclining woman in the foreground of the painting.
This infrared detail detects another change in composition due to the dark mass in the underarm and rib section of the reclining female. Perhaps the leg of another figure was originally bent.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
British, born Netherlands, 1836–1912
The Women of Amphissa
1887
Followers of Bacchus, the god of wine, awaken in the marketplace of Amphissa, Greece, where they have wandered from their home in Phocis during a night of ritual dancing. Amphissa and Phocis are at war, but the women of Amphissa graciously offer the bacchantes nourishment and protection. The painting illustrates an event recorded by the Greek historian Plutarch, which Alma-Tadema staged as a lesson in charity for his Victorian audience.
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 48 1/4 x 72 1/2 in. (122.5 x 184.2 cm) Frame: 58 15/16 x 83 1/16 x 4 in. (149.7 x 211 x 10.2 cm) |
| Object Number | 1978.12 |
| Acquisition | Acquired by the Clark, 1978 |
| Status | On View |
Image Caption
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Women of Amphissa, 1887, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, Acquired by the Clark, 1978.12
Bibliography
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List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Kroll, Jack. "Sublimation and Seduction." Newsweek (11 November 1991). Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Kraemer, Ross Shepard. Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Hedreen, Guy. "Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Women of Amphissa." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 52/53 (1994). Academic American Encyclopedia. Danbury, CT: Grolier, Inc., 1996. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Anonymous. "Nineteenth-Century Painting and Sculpture." The Magazine Antiques 152 (October 1997): 522–31. Heijbroek, J. F. 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EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY
Provenance
[Commissioned by Agnew’s, London, 1887, sold to Thwaites, 30 Apr. or 15 July 1887];¹ Daniel Thwaites, Blackburn (1887–d. 1888); Eliza Amelia Thwaites, Blackburn, his wife, by descent (1888–d. 1907); Elma Amy Thwaites Yerburgh, London, her daughter, by descent (1907–d. 1946); great-grandson of Thwaites; sale, Christie’s, London, 24 Jan. 1975, no. 108; [Somerville & Simpson, London, sold to the Clark, May 1978]; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978. 1. A letter in the Clark curatorial file from Evelyn Joll of Agnew’s, dated 5 Apr. 1979, states that Agnew’s sold this picture along with another to Daniel Thwaites, of Blackburn, and that Thwaites’s great-grandson sold this picture at Christie’s some years before the date of the letter. Clark records indicate the first sale date as 15 July 1887, but Vern Swanson gives it as 30 Apr. 1887; see Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1990, p. 233.
