Algae and Boniface
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 modelled forms. This painting depicts the wealthy Roman woman Algae and her concubine slave Boniface, here living as pagan sinners in Rome around AD 290. On a trip to Tarsus on the Anatolian coast, Boniface converted to Christianity and was tortured and beheaded. Algae also converted to Christianity, gave all her possessions to the poor, and built a church for Boniface's relics.
