Title: Spring

Artist: Lawrence Alma

Lawrence Alma-Tadema Spring 1894 Lawrence Alma-Tadema Dutch, Dronrijp 1836–Wiesbaden 1912; active in England from 1870 Oil on canvas By turns joyful and solemn, a crowd of flower-bearing children, musicians, and elegant women proceeds through a painstaking yet fanciful re-creation of Imperial Rome, teeming with archaeological details based on ancient models. The figures are enacting a springtime rite that had echoes in the May Day festivities of Alma-Tadema's own day. The painting still has its original classicizing frame, designed by the artist and inscribed with a verse by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne: "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."