Glaucus and Nydia
Medium
oil on wood panel
Dimensions
unframed: 39 × 64.3 cm · framed: 55.5 × 81 × 4.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin
Accession Number
1977.128
Tags
About this artwork
"It was one of the few moments in her brief and troubled life that it was sweet to treasure." Weaving a rose garland as a present for her beloved master Glaucus, the blind servant Nydia resists speaking of her love for him. The scene is based on Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton's enormously popular historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii (published in 1835), a melodramatic epic set in ancient Roman times, which culminates with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Responding to the 19th-century appetite for...