Merry company by the spring.

Henryk Siemiradzki was the leading Polish academic painter of the nineteenth century, celebrated for his large-scale scenes of ancient Rome executed with extraordinary technical refinement. This 1885 merry company by a spring belongs to his classical genre subjects — groups of Romans at leisure in idealized Mediterranean settings. Siemiradzki worked in Rome for most of his career, finding in the Italian landscape and ancient Roman subjects material that suited his academic grand manner. His paintings were enormously popular and widely reproduced in his lifetime. The work is currently in museum storage.

Siemiradzki's extraordinary academic technique is fully deployed in the rendering of figures, drapery, and architectural setting. His palette is warm and Mediterranean, the figures in classical dress rendered with the smooth finish of the academic tradition. Landscape and figures are integrated with the compositional skill that made him the most celebrated Polish painter of his generation.