Tadema, Alma

Lawrence Alma Tadema (born Laurens Tadema) was Dutch, and only came to England when in his mid-30s, in 1869. He was a great Anglophile, and became very much part of the English establishment, becoming ARA in 1876, RA in 1879 and gaining a knighthood in 1899. Early influences on his art included George Ebers, a famous Egyptologist, and he painted some ancient Egyption scenes, most notably Pastimes in Ancient Egypt in 1864. However, after a visit to Pompeii, he painted above all the life of ancient Greece and Rome, concentrating on the domestic and the homely rather than the dramatic.

In London, after the death of his first wife, Alma Tadema married Laura Epps, who appears in many of his pictures (along with his daughters later on), with curly red or brown hair, rosy cheeks, and solid rather than fine-boned features. Another characteristic Alma Tadema feature is marble, and he is the supreme painter of that material. His pictures are full of accurate archaelogical detail, praised highly by Ruskin. The ambitious Spring (1895), with a procession of dozens of children and women bearing flowers and musical instruments, overlooked by marble buildings and spectators tossing more flowers.

Alma Tadema's pictures include Phidias and the Parthenon, notable for showing the marbles, The Picture Gallery, which includes a portrait of the art-dealer Gambart, The Sculptor's Model, a nude undisguised as a goddess that caused some debate when it was exhibited and many pictures on the topic of the Roman baths.

Due to his extreme fashionability over a long period, many art galleries have a representative work by Alma Tadema. Phidias and the Parthenon is at Birmngham, Silver Favourites is at the Tate Gallery, In the Tepidarium is in theLady Level Gallery, The Art Lover in Glasgow, and smaller works are at Brighton and in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Unconcious Rivals is at Bristol. Reading from Homer is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Walters Art Museum has his Sappho.
Alma Tadema is the archetypical Classicist painter and at his peak rivalled Leighton in reputation. He was buried in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.