Lawrence Alma Tadema was the highest paid artist of his day by painting meticulously detailed scenes of ancient Greece and Rome. In Sappho and Alchias from 1881, Alma Tadema depicts the poet Alchias playing music for fellow poet Sappho and her companions, though he sets the scene in an adaption of the theater of Dionysus Athens before having ever visited the location. Many of the elements are historically accurate, including the woman's dress, the musical Kithera, text on each seat in sculptural handbrake, completing the historic fantasy.