Pandora by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema Postcard

Pandora (1881) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema is a vintage Victorian Era fine art portrait painting featuring a beautiful woman holding a decorative jar by the ocean. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods, specifically by Hephaestus and Athena on the instructions of Zeus. According to the myth, Pandora opened a pithos releasing all the evils of humanity and leaving only hope behind. In modern accounts Pandora is opening a box. About the artist: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was a classical subject painter, his genre was Academicism, Neoclassicism and Romanticism. He became famous for the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea and sky.