Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1836-1912

   Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was one of the finest and most distinctive of the Victorian painters. Dutch born, he moved to Belgium and than to London in 1870. He was a classical-subject painter and became famous for his depictions of 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.

     After his father died, Lourens was four, he lived his mother with five children. His mother had artistic leanings, and decided to incorporate drawing lessons into the children's education with a local drawing master.

     At the age of fifteen he was diagnosed as consumptive, so he has been left to himself to decide to pursue a career as an artist. In 1852 he entered The Royal Academy of Antwerp where he studied early Dutch and Flemish art. He assisted the professor Louis Jan de Taeye, where he was influenced by history and historical costume and was encouraged to depict historic accuracy in his paintings, a trait for which the artist became known. In his early career Alma-Tadema portrayed Merovingian subjects.

     Under the guidance of Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys in Belgium, Alma-Tadema painted his first major work: The Education of the children of Clovis (1861) which created a sensation among critics and artists. It has laid the foundation of his fame and reputation. That piece was honorably given to King Leopold of Belgium. Merovingian themes were the painter's favorite subject up to the mid-1860. Merovingian subjects did not have a wide international appeal, so he switched to themes of life in ancient Egypt that were more popular. He spent great energy and much research in this and in 1862 he started his own career. On his first visit to Italy, Alma-Tadema developed his interest in depicting the life of ancient Greece and Rome, which fascinated him and would inspire much of his work in the coming decades.

     When Tadema met Ernest Gambart, the most influential art dealer and impresario of the nineteenth century, he gave him an order for twenty-four pictures and arranged for three of Tadema's paintings to be shown in London. In 1865, he relocated to Brussels where he was named a knight of the Order of Leopold I. The outbreak of the Franco Prussian War compelled Alma-Tadema to leave the continent and move to London with his small daughters from first marriage and sister Artje. He re-married Laura Epps, his pupil in London. She, under her married name, also won a high reputation as an artist.

     After his arrival in England, his career was one of continued success. He became one of the most famous and highly paid artists of his time, acknowledged and rewarded. He had met and befriended most of the major Pre-Raphaelite painters and it was in part due to their influence that the artist brightened his palette, variegated hues and lightened his brushwork. Between 1906 and his death six years later, Alma-Tadema painted less but still produced ambitions paintings like The Finding of Moses (1904).

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Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Promise of Spring