Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA (January 8, 1836--June 25, 1912) was a Dutch-born painter of the Victorian era, best known for his sumptuous portrayals of life in the ancient world.

Life

Early life and career

Spring by Alma-Tadema (1894), oil on canvas.

Born at Dronrijp, a Frisian village near Leeuwarden, he was the son of Pieter Tadema, a notary, who died when Lawrence was only four years old. Alma was the name of his godfather. His mother (d. 1863) was his father's second wife, and was left with a large family. It was designed that the boy should follow his father's profession; but he had so great a leaning towards art that he was eventually sent to Antwerp, where in 1852 he entered the academy under Egide Charles Gustave Wappers. Thence he passed to the atelier of Jan August Hendrik Leys. In 1859 he assisted Leys in the latter's frescoes in the hall of the hotel de ville at Antwerp. In the exhibition of Alma-Tadema's collected works at the Grosvenor Gallery in London in the winter of 1882-1883 were two pictures which may be said to mark the beginning and end of his first period. These were a portrait of himself, dated 1852, and "A Bargain," painted Alma-Tadema in 1860.

Early works

His first great success was a picture of The Education of the Children of Clovis (1861), which was exhibited at Antwerp. In the following year he received his first gold medal at Amsterdam. The Education of the Children of Clovis (three young children of Clovis and Clotilde practicing the art of hurling the ax in the presence of their widowed mother, who is training them to avenge the murder of their own parent) was one of a series of Merovingian pictures, of which the finest was the Fredegonda of 1878 (exhibited in 1880), where the dejected wife or mistress is watching from behind her curtain window the marriage of Chilperic I with Galeswintha. It is perhaps in this series that we find the painter moved by the deepest feeling and the strongest spirit of romance. One of the most passionate of all is Fredegonda at the Death-bed of Praetextatus, in which the bishop, stabbed by order of the queen, is cursing her from his dying bed.

Paintings of classical antiquity

The Roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema (1888), oil on canvas.

Another distinct series is designed to reproduce the life of ancient Egypt. One of the first of this series, Egyptians 3000 Years Ago, was painted in 1863. A profound depth of pathos is sounded in The Death of the Firstborn, painted in 1873. Among Alma-Tadema's other notable Egyptian pictures are An Egyptian at his Doorway (1865), The Mummy (1867), The Chamberlain of Sesostris (1869), A Widow (1873), and Joseph, Overseer of Pharaoh's Granaries (1874). On these scenes from Prankish and Egyptian life Alma-Tadema spent great energy and research; but his strongest art-impulse was towards the presentation of the life of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter. Amongst the best known of his earlier pictures of scenes from classical times are Tarquinius Superbus (1867), Phidias and the Elgin Marbles (1868), The Pyrrhic Dance (1868) and The Wine Shop (1869). The Pyrrhic Dance, though one of the simplest of his compositions, stands out distinctly from them all by reason of its striking movement. Phidias and the Elgin is the first of those glimpses of the art-life of classical times, of which Hadrian in England, The Sculpture Gallery and The Picture Gallery are later examples. The Wine Shop is one of his many pictures of historical genre, but marked with a more robust humour than usual.

Unconscious Rivals, 1893.

In 1869 he sent from Brussels to the Royal Academy two pictures, Un Amateur romain and Une Danse pyrrhique, which were followed by three pictures, including Un Jongleur, in 1870, when he came to London. By this time, besides his Dutch and Belgian distinctions, he had been awarded medals at the Paris Salon of 1864 and the Exposition Universelle of 1867. After his arrival in England Alma-Tadema's career was one of continued success. Amongst the most important of his pictures during this period were The Vintage Festival (1870), The Picture Gallery and The Sculpture Gallery (1875), An Audience at Agrippa's (1876) (An Audience at Agrippa's shows the emperor approaching to receive gifts from his clients. When an admirer of the painting offered to pay a substantial sum for a painting with a similar theme Alma-Tadema simply turned the emperor around to show him leaving in After the Audience), The Seasons (1877), Sappho (1881), The Way to the Temple (1883), his diploma work, Hadrian in Britain (1884), The Apodyterium (1886), and The Woman of Amphissa (1887),. One of his most famous paintings was The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888)—based on an episode from the life of the infamously debauched Roman Emperor Elagabalus (Heliogabalus)—An Earthly Paradise (1891), and Spring (1894). Most of his other pictures have been small canvasses of exquisite finish, like the Gold-fish of 1900.

A Favourite Custom, 1909.

These, as well as all his works, are remarkable for the way in which flowers, textures and hard reflecting substances, like metals, pottery, and especially marble, are painted - indeed, his realistic depiction of marble led him to be called the 'marbelous painter'. His work shows much of the fine execution and brilliant colour of the old Dutch masters. By the human interest with which he imbues all his scenes from ancient life he brings them within the scope of modern feeling, and charms us with gentle sentiment and playful humour. He also painted some fine portraits.

Honours

Alma-Tadema became a naturalized British subject in 1873, and was knighted on the occasion of Queen Victoria's eighty-first birthday, 1899. He was made an associate of the Royal Academy in 1876, and a Royal Academician in 1879. In 1907 he was included in the Order of Merit. He became a knight of the order Pour le Merite of Germany (Arts and Science Division); of Leopold, Belgium; of the Dutch Lion; of St. Michael of Bavaria; of the Golden Lion of Nassau; and of the Crown of Prussia; an officer of the Legion of Honor, France; a member of the Royal Academies of Munich (Academy of Fine Arts, Munich), Berlin, Madrid and Vienna. He received a gold medal at Berlin in 1872 and a grand medal at Berlin in 1874; a first class medal at the Paris International Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900. He also became a member of the Royal Society of Watercolors.

A Crown by Alma-Tadema.

Social life

Alma-Tadema was a cousin of the Dutch painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag.

As a man Lawrence Alma Tadema was a robust, fun loving and rather portly gentleman. There was not a hint of the delicate artist about him; he was a cheerful lover of wine, women and parties. The Dutch writer Louis Couperus, a prissy author of decadent books about Roman antiquity, met Alma Tadema once and was shocked and deterred by Alma's bourgeois behaviour.

Name

His daughter told The Literary Digest: "The name that my father made famous is an old Frisian name; in Friesland it is pronounced with all the a's as in ah and the accent on the first syllable of each part of the double name. This, of course, is the correct pronunciation, but the usual English uses a short a": al'ma tad'e-ma. (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

Legacy

Alma Tadema left a large collection of paintings and his huge marble-clad studio to his two unmarried daughters. His work was despised as decadent during most of the 19th. century. It was rediscovered at the turn of the century.

Marriages

In 1863 Alma-Tadema married a French lady, Marie-Pauline Gressin de Boisgirard (who was the model for In The Peristyle of 1866-1868). He lived at Brussels from his first marriage until 1869, when his wife died, leaving him a widower with two daughters, Laurence (1864-1940) and Anna, both of whom afterwards made reputations: the former in literature, the latter in art. In 1871 he married Miss Laura Epps, an English lady of a talented family, who, under her married name, also won a high reputation as an artist, and appears in numerous of Alma-Tadema's canvases after their marriage (The Women of Amphissa of 1887 being a notable example).

List of works

This list is not complete. The legend "Op." followed by a number refers to the practice established by the artist of numbering his paintings (certainly all of his later ones) with 'opus' numbers, usually in the form of a signature such as L. Alma-Tadema Op. CCCXVII or similar. These opus numbers are given where known.

• A Bath (An Antique Custom), 1876
• A Birth Chamber, Seventeenth Century, 1868
• A Coign Of Vantage, 1895 (one of Alma-Tadema's most famous works)
• A Collection of Pictures At The Time Of Augustus, 1867
• A Declaration, 1883
• A Dedication To Bacchus, 1889
• A Difference Of Opinion, 1896
• A Family Group, 1896
• A Favourite Custom, 1909
• A Female Figure Resting (date required, Op. 243 - also known as Dolce Far Niente)
• A Greek Woman, 1869
• A Harvest Festival, 1880 (also known as A Dancing Bacchante At Harvest Time)
• A Hearty Welcome, 1878
• A Kiss, 1891
• A Listener, 1899
• A Picture Gallery, 1866
• A Prize For The Artists' Corp (Wine), (date required)
• A Pyrrhic Dance, 1869
• A Reading From Homer, 1885
• A Roman Art Lover, 1870
• A Roman Emperor, AD 41, 1871
• A Roman Scribe Writing Dispatches, (date required)
• A Sculptor's Model, 1877 (also known as Venus Esquilina)
• A Sculpture Gallery, 1867
• A Silent Greeting, 1889
• A Street Altar, 1883
• A Votive Offering, 1873
• A World Of Their Own, 1905
• After The Audience, 1879
• Agrippina With The Ashes Of Germanicus, (date required, Op. 307)
• Always Welcome, 1887
• An Audience, (date required)
• An Earthly Paradise, 1891
• An Exedra, 1869
• An Oleander, 1882
• Antony And Cleopatra, 1883
• Architecture In Ancient Rome, 1877
• Ask Me No More, 1896
• Autumn, Vintage Festival, 1877
• Ave, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia!, 1880
• Bacchanale, 1871
• Between Hope And Fear, 1876
• Between Venus And Bacchus, 1882
• Boating, 1868
• Carcalla, 1902
• Caracalla And Geta, 1909
• Catullus At Lesbia's, 1865
• Cherries, 1873
• Comparisons, 1892
• Confidences, 1869
• Courtship, (date required)
• Courtship - The Proposal, 1892
• Death Of The Pharoah's Firstborn Son, 1872
• Drawing Room, Holland Park, 1887
• Dolce Far Niente, 1882 (Oil on panel version)
• Egyptian Chess Players, 1865
• Egyptian Juggler, 1870
• Entrance To A Roman Theatre, 1866
• Exhausted Maenides After The Dance, c.1873-1874
• Expectations, 1885
• Faust And Marguerite, 1857
• Flag Of Truce, 1900 (op. 358, signed Artist's War Fund 1900)
• Flora, 1877 (also known as Spring In The Gardens Of The Villa Borghese)
• From An Absent One, 1871
• Gallo-Roman Women, 1865
• God Speed!, 1893
• Golden Hour, 1897
• Hadrian Visiting A Romano-British Pottery, 1884
• Hero, 1898
• Hopeful, 1909
• In My Studio, 1893
• In The Peristyle, 1866
• In The Tepidarium, 1881
• In The Temple, 1871
• In The Time Of Constantine, 1878
• Interior Of Caius Martius's House, 1901
• Interior Of The Church Of San Clemente, Rome, 1863
• Interrupted, 1880
• Joseph, Overseer Of The Pharoah's Granaries, 1874
• Leaving Church In The Fifteenth Century, 1864
• Lesbia Weeping Over A Sparrow, 1866
• Love's Jewelled Fetter, 1895
• Love's Votaries, 1891
• Maria Magdalena, 1854
• Master John Parsons Millet, 1889
• Maurice Sens, 1896
• Midday Slumbers, (date required)
• Miss Alice Lewis, 1884
• Mrs Frank D. Millet, 1886
• Mrs George Lewis And Her Daughter Elizabeth, 1899
• My Studio, 1867
• Ninety-Four In The Shade, 1876
• Not At Home, 1879
• On The Road To The Temple Of Ceres, 1879
• Pandora, 1881
• Pastimes In Ancient Egypt, 3,000 Years Ago, 1863
• Phidias Showing The Frieze Of The Parthenon To His Friends, 1868
• Pleading, 1876
• Poetry, 1879
• Portrait Of A Woman, 1902
• Portrait Of Aime-Jules Dalou, His Wife And Daughter, 1876
• Portrait Of Anna Alma-Tadema, 1883
• Portrait Of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, 1891
• Portrait Of Miss Laura Theresa Epps (Lady Alma-Tadema) (date required)
• Portrait Of Mrs Charles Wyllie, (date required)
• Portrait Of The Singer George Henschel, 1879
• Pottery Painting, 1871
• Preparation In The Coliseum, 1912 (Op. 408)
• Preparations For The Festivities, 1866
• Proclaiming Claudius Emperor, 1867
• Promises Of Spring, 1890
• Prose, 1879
• Resting, 1882
• Sappho And Alcaeus, 1881
• Sculptors In Ancient Rome, 1877
• Self Portrait, 1852
• Self Portrait, 1896
• Shy (date required, Op. 249)
• Silver Favourites, 1903
• Spring, 1894
• Spring Flowers, (date required)
• Strigils And Sponges, 1879
• Summer Offering, 1911 (also known as Young Girl With Roses)
• Sunshine, (date required)
• Tarquinius Superbus, 1867
• The Baths Of Caracalla, 1899
• The Colosseum, 1986
• The Conversion Of Paula By Saint Jerome, 1898
• The Crossing Of The River Berizina -1812, c.1859-1869
• The Death Of Hippolytus, 1860
• The Drawing Room At Townshend House, 1885
• The Discourse, (date required)
• The Education Of The Children Of Clovis, 1861
• The Epps Family Screen, 1870-1871
• The Favourite Poet, 1888
• The Finding Of Moses, 1904
• The Flower Market, 1868
• The Frigidarium, 1890
• The Honeymoon, 1868
• The Massacre Of The Monks Of Tamond, 1855
• The Parting Kiss, 1882
• The Picture Gallery, 1874
• The Roman Potter, 1884
• The Roman Wine Tasters, 1861
• The Roses Of Heliogabalus, 1888 (Op. 283)
• The Sculpture Gallery, 1874
• The Siesta, 1868
• The Soldier Of Marathon (Oil on panel version) (date required, Op. 300)
• The Soldier Of Marathon (Oil on canvas version, date required)
• The Triumph Of Titus, 1885
• 'The Vintage Festival, 1870
• The Voice Of Spring, 1910
• The Way To The Temple, 1882
• The Women Of Amphissa, 1887
• The Year's At The Spring, All's Right With The World, 1902
• This Is Our Corner, 1873 (also known as Laurense And Anna Alma-Tadema)
• Thou Rose Of All The Roses, 1883
• Tibullus At Delia's, 1866
• Unconscious Rivals, 1893
• Under The Roof Of Blue Ionian Weather, 1903
• Unwelcome Confidences, 1902
• Vain Courtship, 1900
• Venantius Fortunatus Reading His Poems To Radegonda VI, 1862
• Water Pets, (date required)
• Welcome Footsteps, 1883
• When Flowers Return, 1911
• Whispering Noon, 1896
• Who Is It?, 1884
• Xanthe And Phaon, 1883

Alma-Tadema and Hollywood

Alma-Tadema's meticulous archaeological researches, including research into Roman architecture, which was so thorough that every building featured in his canvases could have been built using Roman tools and methods, led to his paintings being used as source material by Hollywood directors for films such as D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916) and most notably of all, Cecil B. deMille's epic remake of The Ten Commandments (1956). Indeed, Jesse Lasky Jr., the co-writer on The Ten Commandments, described how the director would unroll a large print of an Alma-Tadema painting before his set designers, and say "build me that!". In his director's commentary on the DVD, Ridley Scott cite Alma-Tadema as an inspiration for the cityscapes in Gladiator.

Another connection with the world of modern media is provided by Allen Funt, the creator and host of Candid Camera, who was a collector of Alma-Tadema paintings at a time when the artist's reputation in the 20th century was at its nadir.

References

• Ash, Russell: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc. New York, 1990, ISBN 0-8109-1898-6

• Swinglehurst, Edmund: Lawrence Alma-Tadema, published by Thunder Bay Press (Canada), 2001, ISBN 1-57145-269-9 (NOTE: the illustration of The Roses of Heliogabalus in this book is printed the wrong way round!)

• Georg Ebers, " Lorenz Alma-Tadema,"

• Westermann's Monatshefte, November and December 1885, since republished in volume form

• Helen Ziramern, " L. Alma-Tadema, his Life and Work," Art Annual, 1886

• C. Monkhouse, British Contemporary Artists (London, 1899)

• The Papers of Lawrence Alma-Tadema (housed at the University of Birmingham Special Collections)

External Links

• Art Renewal: Extensive Alma-Tadema Gallery
• Artcyclopedia: Painting Locations

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)