The Vintage Festival, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Link is to zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the National Gallery of Victoria.
This is another of Alma-Tadema’s stunning evocations of life in classical Italy, in this case, a festival in Pompeii prior to the eruption of Vesuvius. The enlarged versions show Alma-Tadema’s technique, more textural and painterly than one might assume.
ALma-Tadema painted two versions of the painting at the same time, a larger one, now in the Kunsthalle Hamburg (image on Wikimedia Commons) was placed on display; and this one was used by engraver Auguste-Thomas-Marie Blanchard to create a popular engraving.
Before the bagpipes there were pipes strapped to the head?! Can’t trace those instruments. Please, help.
They are odd, but I know that Alma-Tadema was a stickler for historic detail, so I assume they are real. It looks to me as though the function of the strap is to allow the musician to play two pipes simultaneously, one in each hand. Other than that, I don’t know much.