"A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth." -- John Singer Sargent

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Claudius






This 1871 painting entitled "A Roman Emperor: 41 AD" by Lawrence Alma-Tadema hangs in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore Maryland.
"In AD 41, the debauched Roman emperor Caligula was murdered. Gratus, a member of the Praetorian, draws a curtain aside to reveal the terrified Claudius who is hailed as emperor on the spot. Beneath the herm in the background, lie the bodies of Caligula, his wife Caesonia, their young daughter and a bystander. The blood stains on the herm denote the struggle that has transpired as well as the setting, the Hermaeum, an apartment in the Palace where Claudius had sought refuge." --The Walters Art Gallery
Caesonia & Caligula Lying Dead

Gratus pulls back the curtain, exposing Claudius.


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