Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and the Marquand Music Room
During the 19th century, New York City’s grand mansions on Fifth and Madison Avenues boasted sumptuous interiors, often with each room decorated in a different historic style. Financier, art collector, and philanthropist Henry Gurdon Marquand famously commissioned eminent British painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) to create the Greco-Pompeian music room for his home. This beautiful publication documents and examines the celebrated design, which included an elaborately decorated Steinway grand piano, a large suite of matching furniture, and an embroidery scheme for the upholstery and coordinated curtains. Alma-Tadema secured Frederic Leighton to create a major painting for the room’s ceiling and Sir Edward Poynter to paint the piano’s fallboard. One of Alma-Tadema’s most famous paintings, A Reading from Homer, was painted for this room. For the first time since Marquand’s death in 1902, the contents of this exceptional room have been brought together and considered in light of Marquand’s patronage, Alma-Tadema’s career, the firm that manufactured the furniture, and the social function of the music room.   


Distributed for the Clark Art Institute


Exhibition Schedule:

Clark Art Institute
(06/04/17–09/04/17)

1126243452
Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and the Marquand Music Room
During the 19th century, New York City’s grand mansions on Fifth and Madison Avenues boasted sumptuous interiors, often with each room decorated in a different historic style. Financier, art collector, and philanthropist Henry Gurdon Marquand famously commissioned eminent British painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) to create the Greco-Pompeian music room for his home. This beautiful publication documents and examines the celebrated design, which included an elaborately decorated Steinway grand piano, a large suite of matching furniture, and an embroidery scheme for the upholstery and coordinated curtains. Alma-Tadema secured Frederic Leighton to create a major painting for the room’s ceiling and Sir Edward Poynter to paint the piano’s fallboard. One of Alma-Tadema’s most famous paintings, A Reading from Homer, was painted for this room. For the first time since Marquand’s death in 1902, the contents of this exceptional room have been brought together and considered in light of Marquand’s patronage, Alma-Tadema’s career, the firm that manufactured the furniture, and the social function of the music room.   


Distributed for the Clark Art Institute


Exhibition Schedule:

Clark Art Institute
(06/04/17–09/04/17)

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Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and the Marquand Music Room

Orchestrating Elegance: Alma-Tadema and the Marquand Music Room

Overview

During the 19th century, New York City’s grand mansions on Fifth and Madison Avenues boasted sumptuous interiors, often with each room decorated in a different historic style. Financier, art collector, and philanthropist Henry Gurdon Marquand famously commissioned eminent British painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) to create the Greco-Pompeian music room for his home. This beautiful publication documents and examines the celebrated design, which included an elaborately decorated Steinway grand piano, a large suite of matching furniture, and an embroidery scheme for the upholstery and coordinated curtains. Alma-Tadema secured Frederic Leighton to create a major painting for the room’s ceiling and Sir Edward Poynter to paint the piano’s fallboard. One of Alma-Tadema’s most famous paintings, A Reading from Homer, was painted for this room. For the first time since Marquand’s death in 1902, the contents of this exceptional room have been brought together and considered in light of Marquand’s patronage, Alma-Tadema’s career, the firm that manufactured the furniture, and the social function of the music room.   


Distributed for the Clark Art Institute


Exhibition Schedule:

Clark Art Institute
(06/04/17–09/04/17)

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300226676
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 07/18/2017
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 8.20(w) x 10.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alexis Goodin is curatorial research associate at the Clark Art Institute. Kathleen M. Morris is Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions and curator of decorative arts at the Clark Art Institute. 
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