Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009800About the Artwork
The French painter Alexandre Cabanel was a favorite of Emperor Napoleon III and a leader of the academic style that emphasized precise drawing and smoothly modeled forms. This painting depicts the wealthy Roman woman Aglaida and her concubine slave Boniface, here living as pagan sinners in Rome around 290 CE. On a trip to Tarsus on the Anatolian coast, Boniface converted to Christianity and was tortured and beheaded. Aglaida also converted to Christianity, gave all her possessions to the poor, and built a church for Boniface's relics.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: "Alex Cabanel"
Provenance
?–2007: Elizabeth Ludwig Fennell [1917–2007], Cleveland, OH, bequested to the Cleveland Museum of Art 2007–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Rétrospective Alexandre Cabanel. Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France (organizer) (July 10, 2010-January 1, 2011); Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 50667 Cologne, Germany (February 4-May 15, 2011).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Alexandre Cabanel (French, 1823–1889)
- Date
- c. 1857
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Unframed: 62.2 x 68 cm (24 1/2 x 26 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Bequest of Elizabeth Ludwig Fennell
- Accession no.
- 2007.275
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Open-access museum record · AT-00009800
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