About Everything

Written on August 30, 2010 – 12:50 pm | by admin |

Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was one of the most renowned painters of late nineteenth-century Britain.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was born as Laurens Alma Tadema on 8 January 1836, in the small village of Dronrijp, in Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. He was the sixth child of Pieter Jiltes Tadema (1797–1840), the village notary, who had had three sons by a previous marriage, and the third child of his mother, Hinke Dirks Brouwer (c. 1800–1863).
The Tadema family moved in 1838 to the near town of Leeuwarden, where Pieter’s position as a notary would be more lucrative.[2] His father died when Laurens was four, leaving his mother with five children: Laurens, his sister, and three boys from his father’s first marriage. His mother had artistic leanings, and decided that drawing lessons should be incorporated into the children’s education. He received his first art training with a local drawing master hired to teach his older half-brothers.
It was intended that the boy would become a lawyer, but in 1851 at the age of fifteen he suffered a physical and mental breakdown.
In 1852 he entered The Royal Academy of Antwerp where he studied early Dutch and Flemish art, under Egide Charles Gustave Wappers. During Alma-Tadema’s four years as a registered student at the Academy, he won several respectable awards.

The Education of the Children of Clovis (1861), oil on canvas, 127 x 176.8 cm, private collection. Queen Clotilde, wife of King Clovis, is shown training her three young children the art of hurling the ax in order to avenge the deaths of their father[4]Before leaving school, towards the end of 1855, he became assistant to the painter and professor Louis (Lodewijk) Jan de Taeye, whose courses in history and historical costume he had greatly enjoyed at the Academy. Although de Taeye was not an outstanding painter, Alma-Tadema respected him and became his studio assistant, working with him for three years. De Taeye introduced him to books that influenced his desire to portray Merovingian subjects early in his career. He was encouraged to depict historical accuracy in his paintings, a trait for which the artist became known.
The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870 compelled Alma-Tadema to leave the continent and move to London. His infatuation with Laura Epps played a great part in his relocation to England and Gambart felt that the move would be advantageous to the artist’s career.
By 1871 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, varied his hues, and lightened his brushwork.
For all the quiet charm and erudition of his paintings, Alma-Tadema himself preserved a youthful sense of mischief. He was childlike in his practical jokes and in his sudden bursts of bad temper, which could as suddenly subside into a most engaging smile.
In his personal life, Alma-Tadema was an extrovert and had a remarkably warm personality.
He died there on June 28, 1912 at the age of seventy-six. He was buried in a crypt in St. Paul’s cathedral in London.

Self portrait, 1896
Oil on canvas
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy ▼

Faust and Marguerite, 1857
Watercolour on paper
John Constable Esq., UK ▼

The education of the children of Clovis, 1868
Oil on panel
M. Knoedler & Co., New York, USA ▼

An egyptian widow, 1872
Oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands ▼

An audience at Agrippa’s, 1876
Oil on canvas
Dick Institute, Kilmamock ▼

94 degrees in the shade, 1876
Oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum
Cambridge, UK ▼

Dalou, his wife and his daughter, 1876
Oil on canvas
Musée d’Orsay
Paris, France ▼

The tepidarium, 1881
Oil on panel
The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, UK ▼

Roman Potter, 1884
Oil on canvas
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Anthony and Cleopatra, 1885
Oil on panel, 65.5 x 92 cm
Private collection ▼

An apodyterium, 1886
Oil on panel
Mr. & Mrs. Joseph M. Tenenbaum, Toronto, Canada ▼

Love votaries, 1891
Oil on canvas
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK ▼

Unconscious rivals, 1893
Oil on panel
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol, UK ▼

In my studio, 1893
Oil on canvas
Location unknown ▼

Spring, 1894
Oil on canvas
J. Paul Getty Museum
Malibu, USA ▼

A coign of vantage, 1895
Oil on panel
Private collection ▼

The Coliseum, 1896
Oil on panel
Private Collection, USA ▼

A Family group, 1896
Oil on panel
Royal Academy, London, UK ▼

A difference of opinion, 1896
Oil on panel
Private Collection, UK ▼

The baths of Caracalla, 1899
Oil on canvas
Private Collection, UK ▼

A flag of truce, 1900
Oil on panel
Mr. & Mrs. Harold H. Stream
New Orleans, USA ▼

Silver favourites, 1903
Oil on panel
City of Manchester Art Galleries
Manchester, UK ▼

The finding of Moses, 1904
Oil on canvas
Private Collection, UK ▼

Caracalla and Geta, bear fight in the Coliseum: AD 203, 1907
Oil on panel, 123 x 154 cm, Private collection ▼

At Aphrodite’s cradle, 1908
Oil on canvas
Dr. & Mrs. Irving-Warner
California, USA ▼

A favourite custom, 1909
Oil on panel
The Tate Gallery, London, UK ▼

Summer offering, 1911
Oil on panel
Dr. George Nicholson, Oregon, USA ▼

The women of Amphissa
Oil on canvas
The Clark Institute, Williamstown, USA ▼