SIR L ALMA TADEMA, R.A. 
 
 HIS LIFE AND WORK 
 
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 SIR L. ALMA TADEMA 
 
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 HIS LIFE AND WORK 
 
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L. ALMA TADEMA, R.A 
 
 O NE of the greatest ornaments of the Royal Academy at 
 the present time is beyond question the painter Alma 
 Tadema. This distinguished artist has resided in England 
 so many years that the public is apt to forget that he is not 
 truly an Englishman, and that his great fame cannot be 
 altogether laid to the credit of his adopted country. Still it 
 is nothing unprecedented for a distinguished foreigner to 
 become so thoroughly naturalised in this country that only 
 the unfamiliarity of his name reminds us that he is not 
 by birth an Englishman. Herschel and Handel are two 
 famous examples, 
 and in the walks of 
 imitative art we may 
 mention Roubiliac, 
 
 Kneller, Fuseli, and 
 more recently Herko- 
 mer. It is but natural 
 that instances should 
 become more nume- 
 rous as the impedi- 
 ments to national in- 
 tercourse disappear, 
 and the world becomes 
 more cosmopolitan. 
 
 Never, probably, were 
 there so many note- 
 worthy foreigners set- 
 tled in this country, 
 and whether formally 
 naturalised or not, be- 
 
 Art is universal. In the case of Alma Tadema the obstacles 
 to complete adoption into the ranks of English artists are 
 still further mitigated by the character of his work. If his 
 subjects are not English, they are no more un-English than 
 similar themes would be in the hands of an English painter. 
 Since coming among us he has, with rare exceptions, devoted 
 his pencil to the delineation of the life of antiquity, a pursuit 
 in which distinctions of country are obliterated, and the 
 painter’s nationality is rather determined by his residence 
 than his birth on this or the other side of the German Ocean. 
 
 Certainly no Englishman will be anxious to disclaim a man of 
 whom the country of his adoption, as well as the country of his 
 birth, may be justly proud. 
 
 Laurens Alma Tadema was born on the 8th of January, 1836, 
 in the little Frisian village of Dronryp, near Leeuwarden, in 
 Holland. Like the Hobbemas, Dotingas, Ozingas, and other 
 well-known Dutch clans, the Tademas have been natives of 
 the place from time immemorial, and their name is a familiar 
 one in the legends relating to the formation of the Zuyder 
 Zee. The evolutionist can trace with interest not a few of 
 
 Tadema’s qualities as 
 a painter to his Fri- 
 sian origin, evidences 
 of which appear again 
 and again in his work, 
 often in the most un- 
 likely manner and 
 places. The prefix 
 “Alma” is peculiar 
 to the painter, who re- 
 ceived it from his god- 
 father. This is also a 
 Frisian family name, 
 and the painter joined 
 it on to his own for 
 the sake of distinction 
 from other members of 
 his family. 
 
 By birth he is of good 
 Dutch burgher origin. 
 His father, Pieter Ta- 
 dema, was a notary, 
 and seems to have been 
 a man of considerable 
 intelligence, whose 
 aesthetic proclivities 
 showed themselves in 
 a great love for music, 
 a taste inherited by his 
 son. The mother was 
 a woman of rare energy 
 and intellect, adding 
 one more to the long list of remarkable women who have 
 borne great sons. Left early a widow with a large family 
 of small children, two her own, the rest her husband’s by 
 his first marriage, frail of body, poor of purse, the brave 
 woman yet held her own nobly. There was no faltering or 
 failing in her struggle with the battle of life. Difficulties were 
 faced calmly, resolutely, never shunned or weakly ignored. 
 In much of the son’s work we seem to see the mother’s 
 informing spirit, and if from his father Alma Tadema in- 
 herited his musical tastes, his mother gave him a yet more 
 
 come, to all intents and 
 purposes, her adopted 
 citizens, as at the pre- 
 sent moment. That ar- 
 tists should be largely 
 represented among 
 them might be ex- 
 pected, for the man of 
 letters finds diversity of 
 speech a more or less 
 serious hindrance, 
 while the language of 
 
 A. Alma J ad etna, R.A . , from a Painting by Himself . Engraved by R. S. Lueders. 
 
 li 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 precious heritage, that of quiet perseverance, of marvellous 
 energy, of infinite capacity for taking pains, as well as of a 
 high and strenuous sense of duty. Our painter was but four 
 years old when his father died. He was the youngest but 
 one of the family, his mother’s darling, and he watched her 
 struggles with his youthful eyes, and the lessons to be learnt 
 from them sank deep into his soul. 
 
 Early impressions are the strongest, and it is interesting 
 to know what were the outer surroundings of the future 
 painter’s boyhood. We all know Holland as a flat, mono- 
 tonous land, not without a certain charm, perhaps, but some- 
 what tame and dull. Tadema’s early home lay in one of the 
 flattest of the flat portions of that level land. In his boy- 
 hood many of the women of Leeuwarden still wore the quaint 
 Frisian dress, with its brilliant colours, stately caps, and the 
 veils that gave such a quaint distinctive character to both 
 
 the inhabitants and the landscape in which they moved. It 
 is also worthy of note that the province in which the painter 
 was born and lived as a boy is one of the many in Holland 
 where Merovingian antiquities, such as coins and medals, 
 are found ; and it was the Merovingians, we shall find later 
 on, who first attracted him in history. It would seem that, 
 owing to the alluvial nature of the soil, these old Franks 
 were in the habit of making artificial hills for the tombs of 
 their chiefs. On one such hillock tomb, called terfis, stood 
 the church of Dronryp, for the Frisian constantly built on 
 these mounds to avoid the floods, and hence this little village 
 also possessed such ancient remains. 
 
 From his very babyhood Tadema gave unmistakable evi- 
 dence of the artistic bent of his nature. His favourite toy 
 was a pencil. There is an anecdote preserved in the family 
 that relates how the future painter, before he was five years 
 
 old, had detected and corrected an error of drawing in the 
 work of a master who was teaching a class of older boys. 
 But unmistakable as was the artistic aptitude of the lad, 
 earnestly as he pleaded to be allowed to study Art, the course 
 of his true love was not to run smooth. Many difficulties 
 had to be faced and overcome. The mother and the boy’s 
 guardians did not look upon Art as a profession in which to 
 make a career ; it was needful in their position that the boy 
 should select a more certainly bread-winning profession, and 
 it was decided for him that he should become a lawyer like 
 his father. To-day we hardly know whether it is more touch- 
 ing or more comic to think of the painter of ‘ Sappho,’ of 
 ‘ Phidias,’ of the ‘ First-born,’ of so many masterpieces, as 
 destined for the dry, dusty, unpoetic profession of the law. 
 The first thing, of course, was to educate him, and to this 
 
 end the boy was sent to the public school at Leeuwarden, 
 and passed through the usual school routine. It was all 
 irksome to the lad, who in Greek and Latin never got much 
 beyond the declensions, and who, while this lesson was going 
 on, was usually occupied in drawing the old classic gods. 
 Roman history, however, attracted him, a fact worth noting 
 in relation to his afterwork. Tadema is always more Roman 
 than Greek ; his Greeks are generally somewhat Romanised. 
 
 But studying could not satisfy the artistic instincts of the 
 youth, and every moment that could be spared from his 
 regular work was spent in drawing and sketching. At one 
 time young Laurens induced his mother to wake him at day- 
 break. by means of a string tied to his great toe, that he 
 might secure the early morning hours to follow' his favourite 
 occupation. The story is as characteristic of the mother as 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 3 
 
 of the son. That the lad had worked to some purpose, albeit 
 alone and without the help of any master, appears from the 
 fact that as early as 1851 Tadema had painted a portrait 
 of his sister, which was exhibited in a Dutch gallery. About 
 this same time he also painted a portrait of himself. It 
 is still in his possession, and reveals in a dim, inarticulate 
 way, many of the qualities that distinguish his later work. 
 
 This period of early life was, however, a difficult one for 
 Tadema ; for between the desire to abide by his brave little 
 mother’s wishes, and his own overwhelming longing to devote 
 himself to Art, he passed through that “ hell of time ” which 
 makes or mars men. In Tadema’s case it made the man. 
 But the struggle between inclination and what to the inex- 
 perienced lad seemed duty, was too great for the bod)'. The 
 spirit had borne up undauntedly, but the physical health col- 
 lapsed completely, so completely that the physicians declared 
 the young man was not long for this world. To have thwarted 
 the wishes of one doomed to an early grave seemed cruel to 
 the guardians’ mind, so 
 the idea of the law was 
 abandoned, and Laurens 
 was allowed to take up 
 the brush, much as a pa- 
 tient whose case is hope- 
 less is told he may eat 
 what he likes. The men- 
 tal strain thus removed, 
 the illness soon disap- 
 peared also. Still the doc- 
 tors were probably right 
 enough : where the bent 
 of genius is so strong as it 
 was in Tadema, to thwart 
 it means death. 
 
 This illness was the 
 turning point in the artist’s 
 life, and certainly one of 
 the happiest things that 
 could have happened to 
 him. To it he owed what 
 is worth more than life — - 
 mental enfranchisement, 
 personal liberty. That 
 this collapse had been 
 due to the mental strug- 
 gle through which the 
 young man passed, no one who knows the painter now will 
 doubt. The mere idea that this strong 
 been condemned by physicians to an early grave seems 
 almost incredible to those who have ever seen his sturdy, 
 healthy form. For Tadema, as we shall have occasion to 
 point out later, is in all senses of the word healthy. Whether 
 we see in him the supreme genius that he appears to many, 
 or merely the man of extraordinary talent that he appears to 
 others, one thing at least is clear, his work is wholesome and 
 pure, as only the work can be of a man physically as w'ell as 
 mentally healthy. Jl lens Sana in corpure sano. 
 
 Having wrung the somewhat unwilling leave to study Art 
 from mother and guardians, the first problem that presented 
 itself to the young painter was where should these studies be 
 carried on. In Holland, strange to tell, he could gain admis- 
 sion into no Art school or studio. Perchance the worthies 
 who directed them thought the Frisian country lad wanting in 
 
 talent. He therefore decided to go to Antwerp, choosing that 
 city because the son of a family friend was also studying there. 
 This town had the double advantage of being not very far from 
 his home, and at the time one of the artistic centres of Europe. 
 It was then the battle-ground of two schools absolutely opposed 
 one to the other, both in principle and practice. The one was 
 the French school of pseudo-classicism inspired by Louis 
 David; and the other the so-called Belgian-Flemish school, 
 whose aim and object was to revive the best traditions of the 
 native Art as it had been in its most flourishing period. No 
 one who has seen a work by Tadema will be in doubt as to 
 the school to which the young man inclined; and his first step 
 on arriving at Antwerp was to enter the Art Academy and 
 study under Wappers, the leader of what may be termed 
 the national movement. That the youth who had managed 
 to work hard at his art under the most difficult and dis- 
 couraging circumstances, should put forth redoubled energy 
 under these happier ones, goes without saying. “ He did not 
 
 work,” says a friend of the painter, ‘‘he slaved in his efforts 
 to make up for all the precious time that had been lost.” 
 The subjects of these early works (the first of his larger ones 
 was taken from Goethe’s Faust) were for the most part selected 
 from half-mystic, half-historic times; but of these efforts 
 nothing remains. With rare insight, and rarer courage, the 
 young painter ruthlessly destroyed works which his critical 
 mind told him had not attained the ideal of their creator. 
 To this day Tadema exercises the same critical judgment 
 over his pictures. Anything, even some slight archaeological 
 detail, which probably not half-a-dozen people would notice at 
 all, which seems to him not quite perfect, he will paint over 
 and over again till he himself is satisfied. And is not this 
 after all the characteristic of every true artist, that he works 
 to satisfy himself, to satisfy the need of his own soul ? Those 
 who see Tadema’s pictures in an Art gallery see the result of 
 incredibly hard and earnest work ; but few save his intimate 
 
 1’he Education of the Children of Clovis. {See pages 4 and 7.) Engraved by R. S. Luedeis. 
 
 man should have 
 
4 
 
 ALMA TAD EM A. 
 
 friends know how that very picture probably hides another 
 beneath it which the painter has painted out. Those who, like 
 myself, have seen this process have grieved sorely as some 
 beautiful figure, some dainty little detail, has been, as it 
 seemed to them, barbarously removed. Yet, in the end, they 
 must confess he is right. For, as Glevre once remarked 
 about a similar matter, “ L’art se compose de sacrifices.” 
 Even where something exquisitely charming in itself is 
 taken away, the gain to the work as a whole is generally 
 unquestionable. 
 
 But if Tadema worked hard and learnt not a little at the 
 Academy, we have to look elsewhere for the master whose 
 influence was deepest and most lasting. From the Academy 
 Tadema entered the atelier of the famous Belgian historical 
 painter Leys, and in him found exactly what he then needed. 
 To that master he owes much that distinguishes all his work 
 
 — his historical accuracy, his attention to detail. Elis earlier 
 productions naturally also reflect some of the mannerisms of 
 that master, they have something of his hardness and pre- 
 cision. But the influence of Leys was practically of short 
 duration ; Tadema’ s individuality was too strong for pla- 
 giarism, conscious or unconscious. 
 
 In 1859 Leys was painting his frescoes for the Antwerp 
 Guildhall, and he allowed Tadema to assist him in the work. 
 For these services, however, he never accepted a penny from 
 the great artist. His mother, seeing that her beloved son 
 was settled for some time at least in Antwerp, yielded to his 
 solicitations that she and his sister should come and live 
 with him, and the two, leaving Leeuwarden, where they had 
 resided since 1838, rejoined the beloved son and brother, who 
 now seemed likely to make a career even in so unprofitable 
 a profession as that of a painter. Four years later, the adored 
 
 mother, to whom the son owed so much, was taken from him, 
 before, alas ! her boy had made a world-wide fame, but hap- 
 pily not before she had the satisfaction of seeing some great 
 works by him, among them that to which he first owed his 
 reputation, ‘The Education of the Children of Clovis’ (see 
 illustration, page 3), exhibited at Antwerp in 1861. She also 
 lived to see him the recipient of his first gold medal at 
 Amsterdam in 1862. 
 
 The next few years were spent in Antwerp. In 1863 he 
 married a French lady, and two years later he removed to 
 Brussels, where he remained till the death of his wife in 1869, 
 when he came to London, a date that may be said to close 
 an epoch in his life’s career. English life and English ways 
 suited the Frisian, who in 1873 received letters of denization 
 from her Majesty the Queen. In 1871 he married an English- 
 woman, Laura Theresa Epps, whose beauty we have ad- 
 mired again and again 
 on her husband’s can- 
 vases, and of whose 
 talent as a painter we 
 have had proof on her 
 own. In explanation 
 of the fact that Ta- 
 dema has since his 
 earliest years lived 
 and worked every- 
 where save in his na- 
 tive land, his Dutch 
 biographer points out 
 that between the years 
 1856 and 1880 Ta- 
 dema had not earned 
 more than six hun- 
 dred guldens in his 
 own country, and he 
 adds, “praise is well, 
 but an artist cannot 
 live on air.” But 
 although Tadema has 
 lived so long away 
 from Holland, he is in 
 many essential quali- 
 ties Dutch to the very 
 core. His fame may 
 
 be said to be world- 
 
 wide ; almost every 
 country has heaped honours upon him ; to give a list of 
 these would be to take up more space than we have at 
 our command. Art lovers buy up his pictures eagerly, 
 and orders for more come in with such persistency that even 
 this hard worker cannot supply the demand; the more that 
 success, far from making him careless, has made him only 
 more careful to work up to his ideal. To sign his name 
 to a work that does not seem worthy would be impossible 
 to this conscientious artist. Hence, while some of us may 
 find fault here or there, while such a picture may appeal 
 more to one and less to another, while we are able per- 
 haps to point to certain weaknesses of conception or imagi- 
 
 nation, slovenly or scamped work we should happily look 
 for in vain in any canvas, large or small, by Alma Tadema. 
 He knows that to be true to Art a man must first be true 
 to himself. 
 
 The Visit. (See page 13.) Engraved by Carl Dietrich. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 5 
 
 HIS EARLY WORK, 1852— 1S62. 
 
 r ['HE Tadema Exhibition, held at the Grosvenor Gallery in 
 the winter of 1882-83, although it did not include all the 
 painter’s works, for the prohibitive American tariff hindered 
 the presence of many important pictures from over the water, 
 was nevertheless a thoroughly representative one, and afforded 
 Art lovers a rare opportunity for studying not the works only, 
 but the manner of Alma Tadema. They saw side by side 
 the earliest and latest of his creations ; they could compare 
 the efforts of the boy (the first painting exhibited was pro- 
 duced at the age of fifteen) with the mature productions of 
 the man. Such an exhibition, while invaluable for purposes 
 of study, must necessarily be a cruel ordeal even to the 
 greatest painter. That all these numerous works, seen thus 
 together as they were, did not kill each other, that they gave 
 instead unmistakable proof of steady advance in the artist, 
 is so eloquent a fact that it speaks for itself, and needs no 
 further comment. 
 
 To see all a man’s 
 pictures together, 
 to read all a man’s 
 books straight 
 through, where 
 there is not ge- 
 nius, or at least 
 great talent, is 
 likely to be a task 
 wearisome in the 
 extreme, and is 
 almost certain to 
 end in disap- 
 pointment and 
 disillusion. What 
 may appear 
 touches of genius 
 when seen in one 
 or two instances, 
 if repeated again 
 and again are 
 likely to look very 
 much like clever 
 tricks and no- 
 thing more. Tadema would be more than human if in the 
 one hundred and fifty pictures so brought together there 
 had been no traces of mannerism, or if their proximity, while 
 impressing us with the painter’s many qualities, had not also 
 forced out more sharply certain limitations and shortcomings 
 of his art. But of trickery there was nothing. This denotes 
 the high standard of solid workmanship ever maintained by 
 this painter 
 
 Probably the first impression upon looking round the gal- 
 leries In which those pictures were collected was the mar- 
 vellous finish, the completeness of each work, the rapidity 
 with which the painter had found his ground, and the com- 
 paratively short period of tentative effort. Then after a 
 while, almost imperceptibly, there stole upon us a vague 
 impression, a sense as of something wanting : and we asked 
 ourselves what it could be. Everything seemed so perfect, 
 and yet it left a sense of incompleteness. Then gradu- 
 ally it became clear. It seemed as if most of those men 
 
 The Pyn liic Dance. 
 
 and women were beautiful truly, often very beautiful, but 
 only physically so, and that they were too frequently devoid of 
 spiritual life. It was not that we wished to see Greeks with 
 the morbid self-consciousness of our modern times written on 
 their faces, or Romans with the introspection and self- 
 doubting of this nineteenth century. But these men and 
 women must have had some manner of soul, and very rarely 
 does Tadema show it to us. We find freshness, grace, 
 infinite charm of colour, gaiety, strength, but little tender- 
 ness, or pathos, or dramatic intensity. Were we convinced 
 of Tadema’ s incapacity to reach what may, perhaps, be an 
 even higher level, we should not refer to this lack. In a man 
 who gives us so much, we should be worse than foolish and 
 ungrateful to ask for what was not his to grant. But there 
 are certain pictures of Tadema’ s that seem to point to the con- 
 clusion that he has not yet given all that he might. There are a 
 
 few of his canvases 
 (we shall refer to 
 them in detail far- 
 ther on) so full 
 of tragic power, 
 of dramatic con- 
 ception, and of 
 pathos, that we 
 feel justified in 
 pointing to where 
 the qualities are 
 wanting. As a 
 rule, it is Tade- 
 ma’s marbles and 
 silks, his stuffs, 
 his textures, his 
 silver and gold 
 and bronze, and 
 occasionally his 
 flowers, in a word, 
 his inanimate ob- 
 jects that live in 
 our memory, and 
 we not infre- 
 quently think of 
 
 his men and women as mere accessories to these. But 
 the artist who could give us the life-like blending of tragedy 
 and humour of his ‘ Roman Emperor,’ the infinite pathos 
 of the ‘ Death of the First-Born,’ the exquisite tenderness of 
 ‘The Question,’ has not spoken his last word. We have the 
 right to expect something from him that he has not yet be- 
 stowed. Further, work like this seems lacking of late years, 
 and we regret to notice him wasting his marvellous powers 
 upon repetitions, with trifling variants, of some little subject, 
 producing wonders of colour and beauty that fascinate our 
 eyes and brain, but which, nevertheless, fail to reach our 
 hearts. 
 
 The earliest specimen of Tadema’s skill at the Grosvenor 
 Gallery, the one that has survived the elimination already 
 referred to, was the portrait of himself dated 1852. As the 
 production of a lad of fifteen, it has wonderful qualities; 
 there is a simple straightforwardness about it that has in it 
 a world of meaning, and its undoubted hardness and dryness 
 
6 
 
 ALMA TADEMA, 
 
 of tone are more than atoned for by the vigour and earnest- 
 ness of the drawing. The next work of note belonging to this 
 early period is the well-known ‘ Clotilde at the Tomb of her 
 
 Grandchildren,’ one of a whole series of paintings that deals 
 with Merovingian times and modes of life. While studying in 
 the Antwerp Academy under the Professor of History, Detaye, 
 
 the young man had come across Gregor}' of Tours’ “ History 
 of the Franks,” and the quaint old chronicles had completely 
 fascinated him. This is hardly to be marvelled at, for the 
 work is a very treasure-house for artistic 
 purposes, as stirring in its way as any of 
 the old Sagas. As an historian Gregory 
 would hardly satisfy modern requirements, 
 but as a story-teller he is inimitable. He 
 snaps his fingers at objective impartiality, 
 takes sides with his heroes, and deals out 
 poetic justice with refreshing disregard for 
 probability. Above all he introduces his 
 heroes dramatically and makes them speak 
 for themselves. The use made by Tadema 
 of this old book is of the utmost interest, 
 for it throws light upon his whole method 
 of work. 
 
 Nor did he content himself with such 
 hints as could be gathered from this volume. 
 The archaeological truth of his later work is 
 already foreshadowed in this first historical 
 canvas : no possible means of obtaining 
 information was lost ; every little coin found 
 near his home was studied, and the result 
 is a wonderfully powerful picture which in 
 its smallest detail was the outcome of ear- 
 nest study. It affords a perfect insight into 
 his method of work. In Gregory’s Chro- 
 nicles there is no word that tells of ‘‘Clo- 
 tilde at the grave of her grandchildren,” 
 but he narrates the following story. Clo- 
 vis, the great king, had married Clotilde, 
 daughter of the King of Burgundy, and 
 she had borne him three sons. The eldest 
 had fallen in battle with the Burgundians, 
 but his mother had sent for his children, 
 two sons, and had them educated at Paris 
 Then her second son became jealous of the 
 love and care lavished on his nephews and 
 he sent secretly for his younger brother, 
 and the two together determined to slay 
 the children. To get them into their power 
 they said they wished to raise them to the 
 throne, and Clotilde, pleased thereat, for 
 the grandchildren were the sons of her first- 
 born, sent the lads to their uncles, but these, 
 as behoved wicked uncles, murdered them 
 and their attendants and teachers. Then 
 ‘‘the Queen placed the dead bodies of the 
 children on the bier, and amid the singing 
 of choirs and indescribable grief, she her- 
 self followed them to the church of St. Peter, 
 and there buried them side by side. The 
 one was ten, the other seven years old.” 
 Such was the story, and the painter at 
 once beheld all its true meaning, and the 
 scene Gregory had not described became 
 a reality to him. He saw the grandmother 
 grieving at the grave of the little ones, 
 doubly loved for themselves and for their 
 dead father, and as he saw her in his mind’s eye so he has 
 depicted her for us. The execution of this picture shows less 
 perfection perhaps than any other of his early works. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 7 
 
 Next followed the picture to which Tadema owed his really 
 great success, ‘ The Education of the Children of Clovis ’ 
 (see page 3), and in this remarkable painting we already find 
 most of the characteristics that have made him famous ; 
 in less marked degree, of course, than in later pictures, but 
 still all there. We discover in it the Dutch minuteness of 
 detail, the careful adherence to facts, the determination to 
 give historical accuracy as well as accuracy of accessories, 
 the purity of colour and skill in grouping of figures. The 
 influence of Leys is distinctly felt ; indeed, it was the first 
 picture the pupil painted under this great master, but this 
 influence was not sufficient to mask the painter’s own indivi- 
 duality of conception and treatment. Altogether it is an im- 
 mense advance upon the ‘ Clotilde at the Tomb,’ especially in 
 the greater energy of conception, in the more varied draperies 
 
 and in the movement of the whole. This painting, as already 
 stated, was also inspired by the old Frankish story, and, like 
 most of the pictures dealing with these mythic times, requires 
 some explanation. Indeed, it is a peculiarity and often a draw- 
 back to Tadema’s work that it is in inspiration and source too 
 frequently remote from the knowledge and, at times, the interest 
 of the general public. 
 
 The story runs that Clotilde’s uncle had caused her father 
 to be stabbed and her mother to be drowned with a heavy 
 stone hung about her neck. She married the great King 
 Clovis, and after his death sent for her little sons, and telling 
 them not to “ make her rue that she had brought them up with 
 love and care,” bade them think with bitter hate of the foul 
 wrong that had been done her, and “avenge the death of 
 her father and mother.” In his picture, Tadema shows us 
 
 At Lesbia's. Engraved by W. Hecht. 
 
 the Queen superintending that education which is to fit them 
 to carry out the revenge. She gazes with pride at her boys : 
 the eldest is hurling the axe, the second standing by waiting 
 his turn, while the youngest nestles by his mother’s side, 
 watching his elder brothers. She looks on with pride, and 
 yet there is infinite sadness in the set face, that speaks 
 the foreboding at her heart. The design of the eldest child 
 is singularly spirited and original ; the other figures are, 
 for the most part, not so bold and firm as accessory figures 
 in later productions, but that of the boys’ instructor, bending 
 forward to watch the prowess of his charge, is full of life. 
 This remarkable painting, which assured the position of its 
 painter, is now the property of the King of the Belgians. 
 It, in the first instance, was bought by the Antwerp Society 
 
 for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts for the small sum 
 of 1,600 francs, a price which at that time seemed acceptable 
 to the artist. 
 
 ‘Clovis’s Children’ was followed by yet a further series of 
 works inspired by the Merovingian chronicles. We can here 
 but mention ‘ Venantius,’ 1 Fortunatus and Radagonda, 
 now in the Museum at Dortrecht, and the highly interest- 
 ing ‘ Gonthram Bose.’ This last picture is lull ot move- 
 ment, the colouring superb. It affords also an admirable 
 example of Tadema’s method of filling out every inch of 
 canvas. Here the intention is still, perhaps, too obvious ; 
 it was not yet within the powers of the young painter to fill 
 his canvas quite naturally, and without any sense of over- 
 crowding. 
 
8 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 The next pictures still dealt in large part with the Mero- 
 vingians. One depicted Fredegonde at the death-bed of 
 Praetextatus (see illustration). Bishop of Rouen. The canvas 
 can again be best explained by Gregory’s story. This tells 
 how the Bishop, attacked by assassins hired by Fredegonde 
 
 even as he celebrated mass on Easter-day, was sorely wounded 
 under the arm and was carried by his attendants to his room 
 and laid upon his bed. And soon after Fredegonde, accom- 
 panied by the Dukes Beppolen and Ausolwald, came to him, 
 and she pretended to be angered at what had happened, and 
 
 that she should rejoice at his recovery, and that she should 
 seek out the guilty and punish them. “ Then the Bishop, who 
 saw through her deep cunning, said, ‘ Who has done this ? 
 The same who has killed our kings, who has so often spilt 
 innocent blood, and has been guilty of so many crimes in this 
 
 kingdom.’ Then spake Fre- 
 degonde, ‘ I have many ex- 
 perienced physicians, let me 
 send them to thee.’ ‘ Me,’ he 
 replied, ‘ God would now call 
 away from this world, but thou, 
 who hast caused all these sins, 
 wilt be cursed to all eternity, 
 and God will avenge my blood 
 upon thy head.’ Then she 
 went forth, but the Bishop put 
 his house in order and de- 
 parted thence.” 
 
 Flere we no longer find Ta- 
 dema taking a picture merely 
 suggested by circumstance, 
 but actually portraying a writ- 
 len scene ; and how admirably 
 it is on the whole portrayed, 
 those who have seen this can- 
 vas will bear w itness. Beneath 
 the outstretched and denounc- 
 ing arm of Praetextatus we see 
 the death-dealing wound, and 
 we feel its blood will be upon 
 her head, upon the head of 
 that bold bad woman who sits 
 beside the bed. There is no- 
 thing mild or forgiving in 
 the wounded priest ; energy, 
 fierce passion look out of his 
 face. This, as well as the 
 arm, are cursing deep, loud, 
 and long. And how strangely 
 powerful is the calm of the 
 Queen in its contrast to the 
 passion of the man ! The 
 slightly ironical mouth seems 
 to be saying, “ Provided you 
 be called away, out of my 
 way, I reck little who calls 
 you.” And if the form is a 
 little hard, the beauty the 
 painter probably wished to 
 portray somewhat hidden be- 
 neath the sternness of the 
 face, we can forgive it for the 
 sake of the power of this head 
 and figure. There is cha- 
 racter too in the two dukes 
 on the left, and there is fine 
 meaning in the five other 
 figures that compose the 
 group. In this work too we have all the attention to detail 
 which, with Tadema, is proverbial. The bed, the mosaic 
 of the floor, the chair in which the Queen is sitting, the dresses 
 of all the personages represented, all these are reproduced 
 with marvellous care and painstaking. 
 
 7 arquinius Superbus. Engraved by A. Bellenger. 
 
FREDEGONDE AT THE DEATH-BED OF PRHiTEXTATUS. Engraved by Bong and Honcmann. 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 9 
 
 HIS SECOND PERIOD, 1863—1869. 
 
 T HE time had now come for Alma Tadema to turn from 
 portraying splendid barbarians to painting those nations 
 which not only are the source of all our own culture, but the 
 embodiment to us of Art and beauty. It is characteristic 
 that Tadema should first have turned to the land which has 
 fascinated so many poets and artists, the land of mystery and 
 wonders, the birthplace of science, the land of Isis and Osiris. 
 Asked by the well-known Egyptologist, George Ebers, how 
 he had been led to study Egyptian life and customs, and to 
 portray them in his pictures, Tadema replied : “ Where else, 
 when 1 began to make myself acquainted with the life of the 
 
 ancients, should I have begun ? The first thing the child 
 learns of ancient times is about the court of Pharaoh, and if 
 we go back to the original source of Art and the science of 
 ancient nations, how often, then, do we not go back to 
 Egypt ? ” 
 
 The result of this going back to the source of Art was the 
 production, in 1863, of ‘Egyptians Three Thousand Years 
 ago,’ with which picture what may be termed Tadema’s 
 second period commences. IT is method of approaching the 
 subject was absolutely original ; here were no longer the 
 conventional landscape, the conventional figures, and mere 
 
 Entrance to a Roman Theatre. 
 
 archaeological correctness. It must have come wifh something 
 of a shock to many persons, that there could be a side to 
 Egyptian life of which they had not dreamed, that behind 
 these strong forms were living human beings ; that the stolid 
 fixed exterior hid men and women who had laughed and w'ept, 
 rejoiced and grieved, even as ourselves. Indeed the great 
 aim of Tadema’s Art is to bring his Egyptians, Romans, and 
 Greeks, within the scope of our sympathies, or at least of our 
 comprehension of them as men and women, not as simply 
 Romans, or Greeks, or Egyptians. That he occasionally 
 fails may be granted, that frequently we have an irritating 
 
 sense that there is more soul in the marble and silver of his 
 pictures than in his human beings; that his perfection, as 
 Ruskin has said, is sometimes in inverse ratio to the value of 
 the thing portrayed, that we occasionally miss a certain 
 dramatic intensity and spiritual loftiness of conception, can- 
 not be denied ; but at his worst Tadema is never merely an 
 archaeologist reproducing classical remains and no more. 
 When he is at his worst, and the painter of three hundred 
 pictures cannot always be perfect, “ or what’s a heaven for ? ” 
 as Browning would ask, Tadema’s creations are redeemed by 
 many admirable qualities, and when he is at his best — and he 
 
 D 
 
ID 
 
 ALMA TADEMA, 
 
 is at his best when dealing with Egypt and with Rome — he is 
 in many respects unique among living painters, and altogether 
 unapproachable. It is worthy of note that on the whole, 
 excepting of course some very charming pictures, Tadema is 
 far less successful with his Greeks than with his Romans. 
 We cannot avoid a conviction that his Greeks are Romans in 
 disguise. Even the Phidias, which we shall consider presently, 
 despite much that is exquisite, despite the fascination of the 
 subject, has not the subtlety of many of the Roman works, and 
 we could hardly 
 imagine a Hellenist 
 saying what an 
 Egyptologist has 
 said of his Egyptian 
 pictures: “These 
 
 works say much to 
 the connoisseurs 
 that the uninitiated 
 cannot understand. 
 
 This is a true re- 
 surrection of Egyp- 
 tian life. Here is 
 nothing that does 
 not belong to the 
 time of Pharaoh ; 
 just like this wall, 
 were the walls of 
 the Palace of Ra- 
 ni eses III. . . . All 
 here is true, and as 
 if the master had 
 anticipated what 
 was only discovered 
 ten years after the 
 picture (‘ Death of 
 the First - Born ’) 
 had been painted, 
 he placed at the 
 feet of the dead a 
 wreath of flowers 
 that are strikingly 
 like those found in 
 the royal tombs at 
 Derel-Bachri.” 
 
 ‘ The Egyptians 
 Three Thousand 
 Years ago ’ was fol- 
 lowed by the ‘Chess- 
 players ’ (so full of 
 the quaint humour 
 of which the artist 
 displays much in 
 private life, and of 
 which he lets but 
 
 little overflow into his works), ‘ The Egyptian at his Doorway,’ 
 and the ‘ Mummy.’ In the ‘ Egyptian at his Doorway ’ we 
 have Tadema’ s first distinct application of genre painting to 
 antique subjects, and apart from the merits of the work in 
 itself, it is of interest as the forerunner of innumerable other 
 pictures conceived in the same spirit. In this original use of 
 genre may we not again trace something of the painter’s 
 nationality ? The ‘ Mummy ’ too is a wonderful piece of 
 workmanship. It depicts the family of the detunct bringing 
 
 The Convalescent. Engraved by J. D. Cooper. 
 
 offerings to a mummy that stands on end at the right of the 
 spectator. A somewhat similar theme was treated in 1873 
 under the title of ‘The Widow,’ where, in a small Egyptian 
 temple, on the bier, lies the mummy by the side of the sar- 
 cophagus where he is to be laid to rest. Crouching at his 
 feet kneels his sometime wife, while priests sit round sing- 
 ing the funeral psalms. Between columns we behold the 
 palm-trees that grow without, whose shadow falls almost 
 caressingly over the dead and the mourner. 
 
 Besides these 
 works there belong 
 to the years 1865 
 — 1868 many im- 
 portant canvases, 
 among others: ‘A 
 Roman Family,’ 
 
 ‘ The Honeymoon,’ 
 ‘Lesbia,’ ‘The Dis- 
 course,’ ‘Claudius,’ 
 
 ‘ Tarquinius Super- 
 bus,’ ‘ A Roman 
 Dance,’ ‘ Visit to 
 the Studio,’ ‘Agrip- 
 pina with the Ashes 
 of Germanicus,’ 
 
 ‘ Tibullus at De- 
 lia’s,’ ‘ Entrance to 
 a Roman Theatre,’ 
 
 ‘ The Preparations 
 for a Feast in a 
 Pompeian House,’ 
 and various por- 
 traits. ‘ Lesbia ’ 
 is worth mentioning 
 if only to show that 
 the insight of the 
 artist is often more 
 trustworthy than 
 that of the savant. 
 This Lesbia is 
 mourning over a 
 little dead bird, and 
 a Berlin critic de- 
 clared it a ridi- 
 culous mistake to 
 paint a Roman wo- 
 man, “who knew 
 no pity for ani- 
 mals,’’ weeping 
 over a dead bird. 
 Of course Tadema 
 had simply to refer 
 this hypercritic to 
 Catullus, and re- 
 mind him of the maiden who wept her eyes red over the 
 dead sparrow. The ‘Visit to the Studio,’ lacking though 
 it does some of those qualities of refinement that are cha- 
 racteristic of Tadema, is interesting as a study in light and 
 shade, and for effects of chiaroscuro that are as pleasing 
 as they are novel. The harmonizing of the lady s dark 
 cinnamon and the gentleman’s white dress with the sur- 
 roundings is admirable, just as in ‘ Agrippina ’ the red toga 
 and the golden chiton are made tc produce a wonderful result. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 1 1 
 
 The ‘ Entrance to a Roman Theatre ’ (see p. 9 ) shows us Romans 
 going to see a play by Terence. The picture is full of life, and has 
 a touch of humour. The grouping too is admirable, the effect of 
 space being wonderfully conveyed despite the number of figures 
 crowded together. The figure of the woman is perhaps a little 
 wooden. She is one of those women that this painter often 
 introduces, and in whom, do what we will, we cannot feel the 
 slightest interest. ‘ The Roman Family,’ ‘ The Roman Dance,’ 
 and ‘ The Discourse ’ are remarkable for the infinite care 
 bestowed upon them, while in the Pompeian scene we feel the 
 painter had a subject after his own heart. But the greatest pic- 
 ture of those produced during these 
 three years is unquestionably the 
 ‘TarquiniusSuperbus’(seep. 8 ) a truly 
 magnificent piece of work. We see 
 Tarquin cutting off with his sceptre 
 the heads of the tallest poppies that 
 fill the garden court. The sun is 
 streaming in upon the gay flowers, 
 while the wall is kept in sombre 
 gloom. This entire canvas is in- 
 stinct with tragic power. There is 
 a strength in the figure of Tarquin 
 such as Tadema has given us all 
 too rarely, and that fascinates ; you 
 would fain turn away (for there is 
 something almost oppressive in these 
 sun-bathed flowers, contrasting with 
 the stern evil face of the king, that 
 is not without beauty), but you can- 
 not, and as you gaze at each flower, 
 each leaf stands out, and the figures 
 seem living, breathing. Such a work 
 as this clearly proves that Tadema 
 has tragic power, and can paint the 
 soul when he chooses. This same 
 tragic power is put forth, though 
 in an entirely different way, in the 
 pictures that deal with ‘ Claudius 
 proclaimed Emperor after the Mur- 
 der of Caligula.’ This is evidently 
 a subject which has strongly taken 
 hold of the imagination of the 
 painter, for he returned to it three 
 times. First he treated it as ‘ Clau- 
 dius,’ then as ‘ The Roman Em- 
 peror’ and finally as ‘ Ave Csesar ! 
 
 16 Saturnalia ! ’ Admirable as is the 
 second of these works, the finest 
 version of the story is to our think- 
 ing the last, ‘Ave Caesar! ’ It is 
 the finest because more truly dra- 
 matic than either of the others, and 
 because in it the tragedy is more completely maintained. 
 Thus while the two soldiers of ‘ The Roman Emperor ’ are very 
 finely conceived, the crowd is less happily rendered. There is 
 no emotion in these faces. 
 
 But with the ‘ Ave Caesar! ’ (see p. 6 ) this is not so. Here there 
 is meaning not alone in every face, but in every line of every 
 face. The obeisance of the soldier who draws away the curtain, 
 is in its way as characteristic as the attitude of Claudius, as 
 livid, his face distorted by fear, his hand grasping the drapery 
 in an agony of terror, he stands revealed to the populace, half 
 
 reeling in his abject fear. The murdered men and women 
 lying in a heap to our left, and the group of greeting soldiers 
 and women to the right of the picture, as they ironically 
 salute Caesar, are equally admirable. And not less admirable 
 is the subtle, delicate, indescribable touch of humour. The 
 introduction of this humorous element, insisted on just enough 
 and not too much, adds to the tragedy of the whole, as the 
 drunken porter adds to the terror of the murder scene in 
 Macbeth. There are critics who have held the introduction of 
 this porter so opposed to all preconceived ideas of tragedy, 
 that they roundly declare the scene is not Shakespeare’s. In 
 
 like fashion some critics have been shocked at the comedy 
 that goes hand in hand with the tragedy of this picture. But 
 this blending of humour and horror heightens the effect of the 
 whole work. There is a reality in it which Tadema has rarely 
 equalled. The accessories have all the perfection we ave 
 accustomed to in works by this artist, but here the interest 
 in the human beings is so strong we hardly notice them. 
 Here we do not look at the marbles and mosaics, the hangings 
 and decorations first, and from them to the human beings, 
 frequently to return to these again. Here we, indeed, feel 
 
 Portion of the ‘ Vintage Festival.' 
 
I 2 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 satisfied that every detail is beautiful and correct, but it is a 
 detail, and serves only the single purpose of enhancing the 
 tremendous effect of the central figure. The painter who 
 could produce two works so essentially dramatic as Tarquin 
 and Claudius, the dramatic effect being produced in each 
 case by entirely different causes, might surely, had he so 
 willed it, have been one of the greatest painters of that very 
 quality which we too often miss in him, the quality of tragic 
 expression. 
 
 The next pictures of importance painted by Tadema were, 
 
 ‘ Phidias and the 
 Elgin Marbles’ 
 
 (1868), ‘The Siesta ’ 
 
 ( 1 868), ‘A Roman 
 Amateur’ (1868), 
 
 ‘ The Convalescent ’ 
 
 (1869) (see p. 10), 
 
 ‘ Confidences' (1869), 
 
 ‘The Pyrrhic Dance’ 
 
 ( 1 869), ‘ The J uggler 1 
 (1869), ‘ The Cham- 
 berlain of Sesostris ’ 
 
 (1869). 
 
 In Phidias we see 
 the sculptor after he 
 has completed the 
 Parthenon frieze, 
 the greatest artistic 
 achievement of all 
 time. He has just 
 concluded the work 
 and is showing it 
 to Pericles, Alcibi- 
 ades, and Aspasia. 
 
 For a moment, per- 
 haps, it is a little 
 difficult to realise 
 that this is a sort of 
 Greek “Show Sun- 
 day,” but let us 
 once admit the pos- 
 sibility that Phidias 
 did invite such Art- 
 lovers to see his 
 work (it is not im- 
 probable in itself), 
 and we can admit 
 that it must have 
 been much as Ta- 
 dema has imaged 
 it. The frieze to 
 the left of the can- 
 vas shows us a line 
 of horsemen on the cella of the temple, coloured in full 
 tints, and this colouring, it must be confessed, is somewhat 
 heavy. The management of light is singular, for it is reflected 
 from beneath the figures, and broken here and there by the 
 great columns and the tympanum. The visitors are separated 
 from the sculptor by a rope. The big bearded man, a scroll 
 in his right hand, is Phidias himself. Perhaps he is not quite 
 our ideal of the divine sculptor, but that the figure is full of 
 strength and character is undeniable. There is pride in the 
 beari ~>g of the artist. The great ones of Athens have come to 
 
 see his work, but is he not greater than they? This is what 
 his attitude seems to say. And there is rightly more awe in 
 the faces of the onlookers than in his. The noble form imme- 
 diately opposite Phidias must be Pericles ; and the woman 
 clad in the graceful saffron-coloured garments must be the 
 beautiful Aspasia ; while the white-robed youth to the left can 
 be only Alcibiades. Phidias, Pericles, Alcibiades, Aspasia ! 
 How much the names mean to us ! That their embodiments 
 here should fall a little short of our expectation, that these 
 men and this woman who represent a whole age to us should 
 
 here appear rather 
 less interesting than 
 we expect them to 
 do, is but natural. 
 Not even the great- 
 est painters can al- 
 ways succeed in re- 
 alising for us our 
 ideals. But the sub- 
 ject of this painting 
 is singularly fasci- 
 nating, and our 
 slight sense of dis- 
 appointment soon 
 gives place to ad- 
 miration of the 
 painter’s marvellous 
 technique. 
 
 The ‘ Siesta ’ is a 
 charming picture, 
 full of quietness, re- 
 pose, and truly clas- 
 sical serenity. An 
 aged man and a 
 youth are resting 
 together in calm en- 
 joyment while they 
 listen to the strains 
 of a flute. 
 
 In ‘ At Lesbia’s ’ 
 (see p. 7) Tadema 
 has returned to his 
 old love, and he now 
 shows us Lesbia as 
 Catullus reads her 
 his verses. Poets 
 reading their verses 
 to their beloved is 
 a favourite theme 
 with Tadema. He 
 has dealt with it at 
 least three times, in 
 three distinct man- 
 ners, and it is curious to observe that it is the poet who is 
 always the central figure, though we know not whether it 
 was the artist’s intention or not that this should be. Ibis 
 ‘ Lesbia,’ amid all the beauty of her surroundings — and how 
 beautiful they are ! how full of light and air, as she listens, 
 quietly resting with a far-away abstracted look in her large 
 eyes ! — she is in the centre of the picture, the full light 
 illuminates her, seems to be about her as if it was in love 
 with the graceful limbs, and yet it is the reading poet we 
 shall remember when we turn away from the picture. There 
 
 7 he Improvisatore. Engraved by A. Gloss. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 13 
 
 is a yearning earnestness in this somewhat gaunt figure, 
 a sort of passionate meaning in the outstretched arm, a 
 tension about the face that is full of strength, and not 
 without a certain pathos. We also bear away a very vivid 
 memory of the two attendants, the one looks at Lesbia, the 
 other gazes up with something like pity in the eyes. Has the 
 thought of Catullus reading to this Lesbia brought it there ? 
 
 The ‘Convalescent’ (1869) (see page 10) takes us again 
 into a Roman interior, an atrium. The figure of the conva- 
 lescent herself is not particularly attractive ; the pose is un- 
 graceful ; but the old Roman woman who is reading to her 
 and the slave are cleverly individualized. The roses round 
 the marble bust, the column on which hangs a portrait of her 
 lover, and the curtains are singularly beautiful. 
 
 ‘ The Chamberlain of Sesostris ’ (1869) is a fine work ; and 
 ‘The Juggler’ (1869), one of exceeding cleverness. It is, 
 however, somewhat hard. As an example of its cleverness 
 we note the manner in which it is shown that the juggler 
 does his tricks with his hands only, the arms are almost 
 motionless. The onlookers are of greater interest than the 
 juggler himself. 
 
 ‘ The Pyrrhic Dance ’ (1869), of which a sketch is given at 
 page 5, is one of the many dances, and certainly the most 
 original, that Tadema has painted. It created a profound 
 sensation when exhibited in the Academy. The dancers 
 here are Dorian warriors, their dance a war-dance ; they are 
 heavily armed, and are led in their movements by one who 
 is a little in advance of the rest. The strong men, de- 
 spite the great bronze helmets, shields, javelins and corselets, 
 move easily, as if they hardly felt the weight of their ac- 
 coutrements. The way in which Alma Tadema has suc- 
 
 The Sculpture Gallery. (See page 17.) 
 
 ceeded in making us see that they are heavy, and are light 
 only because of the wearer’s strength, is admirable. The 
 violent motion has raised a cloud of dust that half obscures 
 their legs. The great notables who look on are seated in the 
 
 slightly raised amphitheatre, and as they pass them in the 
 arena, the dancers bow to them. Behind the mighty marble 
 columns is a dense mass of people looking on at the perform- 
 ance with various degrees of interest. This picture might be 
 
 The Picture Gallery. ( Seepage 18.) 
 
 said to note high-water mark in Tadema’s Art. In certain 
 respects it has never been surpassed, in others never ap- 
 proached. It was no easy task to present pictorially this 
 “mimic-warrior armour game,” as Plato calls it. It was 
 the philosopher who taught Tadema the principle of this 
 “game;” representations upon vases that helped him to 
 depict it with archaeological accuracy; his own sure instincts 
 that made him delineate it with such force and measure, 
 with that absence of the slightest touch of exaggeration which 
 in this dance was specially fatal, as it threw it into the ludi- 
 crous, a result that did occur sometimes, as we have historical 
 evidence. It is known too that both Caligula and Nero 
 bestowed the right of citizenship upon those Ephebae who 
 danced the Pyrrhic with grace and skill, so highly was this 
 performance valued. 
 
 ‘ A Roman Amateur ’ takes us once more to Rome, and 
 again to the atrium of a Roman house. The amateur, 
 Roman though he be, seems a fat, vulgar fellow. He is 
 showing some visitors a silver statue. The dark-haired friend 
 looks with a certain critical glance at the statue ; the woman 
 (what a world of suggestion Tadema puts into her costume !) 
 gazes on stupidly, she is thinking the statue is made of silver 
 — we know that as well as if we heard her say so. The third 
 visitor is the most interesting. There is a look of undisguised 
 savagery about him that is rendered with perfect success, 
 because it is not over-accentuated. Yet, or rather because, 
 of this self-restraint in the painter who has not laid it on 
 with a trowel, we know the man is a villain, absolutely 
 brutal. 
 
 To this year (1869) belongs also ‘ The Visit ’ (see page .}), 
 a picture which is perhaps little known to Englishmen. 
 
 E 
 
14 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 TADEMA IN ENGLAND. 1869—1875. 
 
 T T was in 1869 that Tadema came to live in Lon Jon, and 
 commenced what may be named his English career. 
 The first pictures painted after that date are ‘The Vintage’ 
 (1870), ‘The First Whisper ’ (1870), ‘At Lesbia’s’ (1870), and 
 ‘ In the Temple ’ (1871). 
 
 ‘ The Vintage,’ portions of which are reproduced at page 11 
 and at page 19, is one of Tadema’s most important works. 
 But while it bears witness to his unique skill and his power, it 
 goes far to justify those who contend that he has small sense 
 of physical beauty in men and women. A procession is 
 entering a temple. The priestess, the leading figure, would 
 certainly not satisfy all tastes in respect of beauty. Most 
 persons would consider her too heavy in build and form for 
 
 loveliness. She lacks light feminine grace, but she has in- 
 stead qualities which the painters of mere beauty often miss. 
 She has character ; and the impression of want of beauty is lost 
 in the far stronger conviction that she is flesh and blood. The 
 same, in some degree, holds good of the other figures. Some 
 are almost disfigured by the straps that half hide the faces: 
 the men bearing the huge wine kegs are not individually inter- 
 esting, but like the priestess they give us an impression of 
 reality. The picture is a striking example of Tadema’s power 
 of conveying his idea and intention to the spectator; he here 
 succeeds in making us forget the individuals, who, truth to 
 say, are not particularly attractive, the better to impress upon 
 us their object. We think of the procession and forget the 
 
 Antistius Labeon. {See page 16.) 
 
 actors in it even as we look at them. So real, so profound is 
 this sense of their having an object that we half listen for the 
 sounds of music, half expect to see the people move along, to 
 hear the shouts of “ Evoe.” Tadema has rarely been so 
 happy as in this picture in giving a sense of motion. He has 
 frequently been called the painter of repose, and with some 
 notable exceptions the description is sufficiently just. But 
 certainly looking at this work alone, no one could understand 
 why such a term should have been applied. As for the 
 colouring of this picture, it is remarkable even for Tadema. 
 It is positively saturated with light ; we seem to feel the soft 
 balmy air ; the marble shines, and the bronzes, the musical 
 
 instruments, the wine kegs, the garlands, the thousand and 
 one accessories gleam and sparkle in this bright, clear day- 
 light. How perfect these accessories are, we only begin to 
 understand when we make up our mind to examine them as 
 things in themselves, which is not easy, they belong so to the 
 picture as a whole. Alma Tadema’s archaeological knowledge 
 is admittedly unrivalled, and we may be quite certain that 
 every detail is scientifically accurate. This artist, indeed, not 
 unfrequently bestows care upon his accessories to the detri- 
 ment of his human beings ; but at any rate we never feci 
 with him, as with many another painter, that he has a stock 
 of properties in a cupboard which he deliberately paints 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 55 
 
 in. Whether too much emphasized, as in some cases, or 
 whether used merely as the means to an end, his accessories 
 belong to his theme, are part of it and never meretricious. In 
 this work they are distinctly useful in helping us to realise the 
 true meaning of the whole. Occasionally when painting the 
 light-hearted gaiety of the Pagan world, still in its unsaddened 
 childhood, Tadema is not quite successful. There is now and 
 then a sort of “how very gay we are” expression about the 
 people that suggests anything but the gaiety which must be 
 utterly unconscious. But this reproach would be quite out of 
 place applied to ‘ The Vintage,’ we 
 may be sure the men and women of 
 this procession “fleet the time care- 
 lessly.” 
 
 The year 1873 is memorable as the 
 year in which Tadema produced what 
 to many of his admirers is his finest 
 work (a preference which the painter 
 himself shares), namely, ‘ The Death 
 of the First-born.’ Besides this work, 
 to this year belong ‘The Widow,’ 
 
 ‘The Nurse,’ ‘The Improvisatore,’ 
 
 ‘ The First Reproach,’ and ‘The Last 
 Roses.’ There is much power in the 
 form of ‘The Widow,’ dead to all but 
 her grief, and ‘The First Reproach’ 
 is not without charm. ‘ The Improvi- 
 satore ’ (see p. 12) tells its own story, 
 but so beautiful is the landscape that 
 we are inclined almost to neglect the 
 poet and his audience ; yet the figures 
 are not without character. The dif- 
 ferent moods in which they listen is 
 conveyed with great skill. But we 
 must linger for a moment over ‘ The 
 Last Roses,’ and we look at the 
 flowers rather than at the woman who 
 is placing them upon the marble altar. 
 
 These flowers are not flowers in all 
 the flush and pride of spring-time ; 
 they are autumn flowers, they will die 
 - — are dying as we look — and these 
 last roses bring us to the considera- 
 tion of a side of Tadema’s genius not 
 yet touched upon, namely, his infinite 
 skill as a painter of flowers. It is 
 true that his flowers, like his men and 
 women, sometimes lack soul, and that 
 they are not always flowers that would 
 grow in a poet’s garden. Still Ta- 
 dema is oftener than not as much in 
 the secrets of flowers as Heine. More 
 than once he must have played eaves- 
 dropper ; while the violets 
 
 “ kichern und kosen,” 
 
 and while, 
 
 “ Heimlich erzahlen die Rosen, 
 
 Sich duftende Marcken in’s Ohr. ,, 
 
 To understand Tadema’s supremacy as a flower painter we 
 must look at those many pictures in which they are introduced. 
 His use of flowers is exquisite, nearly as exquisite as Shake- 
 speare's use of music. We can hardly say why the flowers are 
 where they are, or why they should be those particular flowers, 
 
 but we know they belong there, and that just such flowers there 
 must have been at that place and time. As a charming ex- 
 ample of this unique use of flowers we may note their intro- 
 duction even in so early a work as the * Education of the Chil- 
 dren of Clovis.’ The poor flowers, carried by an attendant 
 in the background, are all unnoticed of the Queen, bent 
 on her revenge. Again note the garlands introduced into 
 so many works, now hanging from the busts of kings and 
 emperors, now borne by merry dancing maidens. Is not 
 the ‘ Oleander ’ almost more human than the girl sitting 
 
 beside it? And the tree in ‘Pomona’s Festival;’ one must 
 dance round such a tree as that ; and the flowers round 
 ‘ The Improvisatore,’ are they not a poet’s dream ? These 
 flowers too always express something. Compare, for example, 
 the tragic import of those marvellous poppies in ‘Tarquin,’ 
 with the quiet charm and homely sweetness of the onion flowers 
 in the ‘ Kitchen Garden ; ’ or see the brilliant bed of flowers in 
 ‘ Young Affections,’ as young as the young child they surround, 
 the sunflowers in all their glory, the roses in the ‘ Love 
 
 An Audience at Agrippa' s. ( Seepage 18.) 
 
i6 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 Missile,’ or the mere rose-leaves in ‘ Summer.’ They almost 
 “ make us faint with too much sweet.” While speaking of his 
 flowers, we must not forget Tadema’s corn, and above all, his 
 grass. The grass in the ‘ Pastoral,’ all aglow beneath the hot 
 sky, is as eloquent as any flower. 
 
 We have left the most remarkable work of 1873, ‘ The Death 
 of the First-born,’ to the last, and to turn from Tadema’s 
 flowers to this work is sufficient proof, if proof were needed’ 
 not merely of his great talent, but of his extraordinary versa- 
 tility. In certain qualities ‘ The Death of the First-born ’ 
 stands pre-eminent and alone among Tadema’s works. We 
 have seen him depict tragic intensity in ‘ Tarquin,’ and if we 
 may so call it, a grotesque tragedy in ‘ The Roman Emperor.’ 
 In this picture of the last worst plague of Egypt, he gives us 
 pathos, despair, that silent grief which “whispers the o’er- 
 
 fraught heart and bids 
 it break.’ We enter 
 a great Egyptian tem- 
 ple, where we seem 
 almost to feel the dark- 
 ness and gloom, made 
 the stronger by the 
 gleam of moonlight 
 seen through the dis- 
 tant doorway, and by 
 the lamp that makes 
 the shade more deep 
 and drear. In front is 
 a pillar with hierogly- 
 phics inscribed upon 
 it ; its capital lost in 
 the darkness gives a 
 strange sense of awe ; 
 but death is mightier 
 than these mighty co- 
 lumns, than the great 
 temple, than Pharaoh 
 himself, for it is his 
 first - born who lies 
 dead. Priests and mu- 
 sicians are gathered 
 round lamps on the 
 floor. The priests are 
 praying, the musicians 
 playing upon strange- 
 looking instruments. 
 The first effects of this 
 solemn scene is awe- 
 inspiring. The co- 
 louring is sombre, with a use of ereens and browns that is 
 simply inimitable. Thus prepared by the whole surroundings, 
 our attention becomes fixed upon the group of four persons 
 clustered near the king. One of the extraordinary effects of 
 this picture is that while this group of persons is the centre, 
 both actually and spiritually, of the scene, we first observe 
 all their surroundings. Then, as if our mind were subdued to 
 the tragedy of the story, we look upon these four, and to 
 have looked is to remember them always. Pharaoh sits upon 
 a low stool, across his knees lies the slender form of his first- 
 born, dead. The youth is almost naked; the face is won- 
 drously sweet, and there is an inexpressible fascination about 
 the strange golden chain that hangs about his neck, and 
 which probably was put there, bearing some amulet that 
 
 should shield the king’s son from harm. The king, on whom 
 the light falls, wears his crown, whose brilliant jewels seem 
 to mock his helpless grief. He sits rigid, calm, immovable. 
 The strong, proud man will make no sign ; but, see, there 
 is one feature he cannot control, for not even his strong 
 will can prevent the trembling of his mouth. It is slight — 
 so slight we hardly see it at first— but what a world of woe it 
 expresses! This figure might be taken as the embodiment of 
 grief, grief fixed and immutable, and, like all true emotion 
 truly expressed, with not a hint of morbidness. The mother 
 sits near, bowed down by her sorrow. She too has striven to be 
 strong, and even in this outburst of despair shows self-restraint. 
 On the other side of Pharaoh sits the physician who has been 
 powerless to combat death. In the distance, outside the door- 
 way, move two figures ; they are Moses and Aaron, coming to 
 behold their work. This is truly a marvellous picture, and we 
 cannot wonder that its creator likes to retain it in his own hands. 
 It is no picture; it is a thing alive. In every light, in every 
 view, it reveals new features, new aspects of sorrow. And yet 
 it is not too painful a picture to live with, for all its profundity 
 of grief; Alma Tadema is always healthy; there is no trace 
 of morbidness in his nature, and sorrow as rendered by him 
 is what it should be, a grief, but nothing false and strained. 
 The painter of the glad, joyous, sensuous world of the ancients, 
 the world as yet unsaddened by introspection and hyper- ana- 
 lysis of feeling, does not comprehend these sickly modern 
 hyper- sentiments. 
 
 Just as in his ‘ Tarquin ’ and ‘ Emperor,’ Tadema proved 
 that he could express tragedy, so here he has shown con- 
 clusively that he can paint pathos, and that he is possessed of 
 the deeper imagination which he puts forth all too rarely. 
 Had Tadema created but this one superb work, he would be 
 among the greatest artists of our time. 
 
 Of the pictures belonging to 1873 we must first linger for a 
 few moments over the beautiful little work called ‘ Fishing.’ 
 A classical garden, a pond, reeds and flowers, a wall, a 
 woman fishing. These are, so to speak, the ingredients of 
 the picture ; not very striking materials, yet so used that the 
 result is indescribably charming. The wall behind the fishing 
 woman is golden, of that rare gold colour which Tadema 
 paints so well, and it serves to throw into wonderful relief the 
 cool, clear water. On the hottest day of a hot close London 
 summer one would feel refreshed by looking at this little 
 canvas. It must be an ideal picture to live with. Next we 
 must look at ‘ The Wine.’ Here are a group of people appar- 
 ently resting after a meal. On the table lies a cheese and a 
 loaf, and — note it carefully, it seems to mean a great deal — 
 a bronze Bacchus. One of the group, an old man, is appar- 
 ently reflecting on the excellence of his wine ; another is 
 having his cup refilled by a slave. The slave’s back only is 
 shown to us, but what character it reveals ! 
 
 The next year was extraordinarily prolific. To mention but 
 a few of the works produced or exhibited : there was ‘ Sunny 
 Days-,’ ‘A Peep through the Trees,’ ‘Joseph Overseer of 
 Pharaoh’s Granaries,’ ‘Munster,’ ‘Through an Archway,’ 
 
 ‘ Water Pets,’ ‘ Antistius Labeon,’ ‘ The Picture Gallery,’ and 
 ‘ The Sculpture Gallery.’ Of these the most important are, 
 of course, the celebrated Picture and Sculpture Galleries ; but 
 we must at least refer in passing to so fine a bit of landscape as 
 ‘ Munster ;’ to the charming ‘ Water Pets,’ charming, though 
 that has not quite the charm of the inimitable ‘ Fishing ; ’ to 
 ‘Joseph,’ a small but characteristic painting, and ‘Antistius 
 Labeon ’ (see page 14). In this latter Tadema has used a little- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 } 
 
 
 
ALMA TADLMA, 
 
 known incident, and introduced us once again to one of those 
 bits of Roman home life that makes his ancients so real to us 
 moderns. For this Antistius Labeon, sometimes erroneously 
 called Aterius Labeo, was a Roman amateur artist, who lived 
 in the days of Vespasian, and was pro-consul of the Narbonne 
 district. He painted small pictures for his pleasure, and in 
 Tadema’s canvas 
 he is represented 
 as showing his 
 work to his friends. 
 
 It is characteristic 
 of the times in 
 which he lived 
 that such dab- 
 bling in Art was 
 considered by no 
 means the proper 
 thing fora man in 
 his social and civil 
 position. 
 
 The technique 
 in the “ Galleries” 
 
 (see illustrations, 
 p. 13) is indescrib- 
 able, and the me- 
 chanical merits of 
 the works are un- 
 approachable. In 
 certain respects 
 the first version of 
 ‘The Sculpture 
 Gallery,’ that of 
 1867, reminds us of 
 the ‘ Roman Ama- 
 teur,’ but here 
 everything that 
 was but indicated 
 there is fully 
 worked out. We 
 are once more be- 
 ing shown a work 
 of Art, not this 
 time by a rich 
 amateur, but in a 
 shop of the period, 
 the back of which 
 was reserved for 
 large pieces and 
 the front for small. 
 
 We are in Rome, 
 and a company of 
 persons have 
 come to look and 
 admire. Their at- 
 tention is more 
 especially concen- Hide-and-Seek. (See page iq.) 
 
 trated on the great 
 
 vase which a slave is showing (we know he is this by the 
 crescent worn round his neck). It stands upon a pedestal, 
 and the attendant is turning it round so that the company 
 may see it in all lights. The male visitor has seated him- 
 self near his wife, and is apparently holding forth to her 
 upon the merits or demerits of the vase. Pressing up close. 
 
 with the fearless curiosity of childhood, are two little ones, 
 and we may be sure that but for the restraining hand of 
 the handsome woman behind them, they would try to touch 
 the work that is being shown them. In the first version of 
 4 The Sculpture Gallery,’ a statue of Sophocles (the famous 
 Lateran one) forms the central point, and is being discussed 
 
 by a group com- 
 posed of a Roman 
 lady and two Ro- 
 man men. The 
 bronze, the mar- 
 ble, the sculptures 
 of the gallery, the 
 draperies, the 
 bronzes and the 
 silvers are mira- 
 cles of painting. 
 We look on al- 
 most breathless at 
 the manifestation 
 of such supreme 
 skill. Not least 
 remarkable in this, 
 and in its fellow- 
 picture, is the ma- 
 nagement of light. 
 In Phidias we saw 
 the bold and ori- 
 ginal lightingfrom 
 below, here the 
 light comes from 
 above, and Ta- 
 dema has scorned 
 all those little 
 tricks by which 
 less able colour- 
 ists seem to gain 
 their effects. It 
 has been pointed 
 out, with a certain 
 amount of justice, 
 that some of the 
 Roman types here 
 given are essen- 
 tially English, and 
 that we really look 
 on Englishmen 
 dressed in Roman 
 attire ; and it is 
 true, for the per- 
 sons depicted are 
 almost without ex- 
 ception portraits. 
 It is to this pic- 
 ture that Ruskin 
 referred in his 
 sweeping asser- 
 tion that Tadema’s stone was good, his silver less good, 
 his gold bad, and his flesh worst. It must be confessed 
 that the figures here presented fail to interest us much, and 
 that the impression we take away from this work is rather 
 one of the unspeakably beautiful accessories than of the princi- 
 pal personages. Indeed, we unconsciously look upon them 
 
 F 
 
 Engraved by Bans' and Himemann. 
 
1 8 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 as accessories to the rest. But after all, while we do feel in 
 this some sense of loss, is not Tadema perhaps more logical ? 
 Truly human emotion affects us more than any beautiful 
 object, but here, where no deep emotion could be portrayed, 
 may we not assume that the works of Art, the productions of a 
 genius, are far more interesting than a rich family who go to 
 look at them ? The persons who throng to an exhibition of 
 paintings do not, as a rule, interest us so much as the Art dis- 
 played. Perhaps Tadema felt this, though probably uncon- 
 sciously. It may be we are seeing in his work something 
 quite foreign to his intentions, and that would not necessarily 
 strike many persons. But to us the thought seems something 
 like this : beautiful marbles, and bronzes, and silks, and 
 silvers are more interesting than a group of persons who are not 
 moved by any deep feeling. It might be urged that not 
 endowing these men and women with such feeling is Tadema’s 
 fault, but while we have admitted that the reproach of un- 
 spirituality frequently made against this painter is sometimes 
 deserved, it is not so here. A picturesque group of Roman 
 
 Philistines are looking at an artist’s creations, and we prefer 
 these creations to the Philistines. 
 
 In the companion picture, ‘ The Picture Gallery ’ (see illus- 
 tration, page 13), there is, if possible, even more exquisite work. 
 To us the sunshine in this picture — with what wondrous effect 
 Tadema knows how to give us sunshine and bits of sky that 
 speak of sweet odours and balmy winds !— is finer even than the 
 management of the light in ‘ The Sculpture Gallery.’ Here too 
 we feel a greater interest in the men and women, at any rate in 
 the earnest young fellow who looks so eagerly at the canvas. 
 He is no Philistine come to hold forth to his wife ; no dilettante 
 come to make a purchase. He is listening with all his soul in 
 his eyes to the description of the painting that stands on an 
 easel turned with its back to us. He is absorbed in the work 
 and does not heed the handsome yellow-haired woman, lazily 
 reclining on a couch behind him, scroll in hand, over which she 
 looks towards the picture that so entrances her companion. 
 There is pride and hauteur in the delicate fair face, but the 
 lines at the mouth express a certain sense of ennui. The con- 
 
 Down tu the River, (t>ee J>uge 21.) Rngraved by R. S. Lueders. 
 
 trast between these two exists not merely in face but in form ; 
 the attitude of the man is a magnificent piece of drawing, and 
 there is an inexpressible grace, not without voluptuousness, in 
 the reclining woman. It was said at the time when this 
 picture was exhibited at the Academy that one of the figures 
 introduced, the black-robed figure behind the couch, was that 
 of a well-known London Art connoisseur. In the background 
 another group, presented with that quiet humour which Tadema 
 sometimes has, is examining paintings on the wall. These 
 paintings are in themselves admirably rendered, and the group 
 is full of life. Altogether these two works, which belong 
 to M. Gambart, fully deserve the immense reputation they 
 enjoy. 
 
 Between 1875 ar| d 1 877, Alma-Tadema produced many 
 pictures. Here we shall refer only to the most important. ' An 
 Audience at Agrippa’s ’ (see illustration, page 15) is one of 
 those works in which closeness and fidelity to archaeological 
 detail are united to higher qualities than even the painting of 
 these m utmost perfection. W hat strikes us first in this picture 
 is the sense of size, of grandeur, It conveys. It belongs to a 
 
 whole series of works which may be styled historical, though 
 probably in the strict sense of the word they are not so, for they 
 portray no special historical scene. They rather render the spirit 
 of a given period. From an atrium on a high level down a 
 broad flight of steps majestically descends Marcus Vipsanius 
 Agrippa, the greatest and mightiest burgher of his day. He is 
 clad in imperial red, that stands out marvellously against the 
 white of the marble stairs. His face is set with a look of stern 
 determination that speaks of unbending will. He is followed by 
 a crowd of persons, some of whom are still bowing, though 
 Agrippa has passed by. Upon the landing at the bottom of 
 the stairs — a marvel of blue mosaics with a tiger-skin lying 
 across it — there is a table. On this stands a silver Mars and 
 materials for writing, for the use of the two scribes standing 
 behind it. Note the character in these heads, the close-cropped 
 hair that denotes their servile rank, the cringing salute, each 
 trying to outbid the other in humility of manner. Just before 
 these figures, at the foot of the staircase, stands the tvorld- 
 famed statue in the Vatican, of ‘Augustus Imperator,’ the 
 only man whose supremacy proud Agrippa would acknow- 
 
ALMA TADEMA 
 
 1 9 
 
 ledge, his device being, “ To obey in masterly fashion, but 
 obedience to one person only.” Below this statue, where 
 the staircase seems to turn at the landing, is another group. 
 These are evidently three suitors, of whom one, a woman, holds 
 m her hand some gift. Even to the rich and mighty, gifts “ ne 
 gdtent rien ” when you have a request to make. This group — 
 father, son, and daughter — are admirably real. And not the 
 least felicitous touch in this beautiful work is the glimpse of 
 outer air seen beyond the atrium, beyond the group of followers. 
 It is again one of those Tadema bits of sky that never fail to 
 produce so wonderful an effect. The greater part of this 
 picture was painted in the autumn of 1875, of which the artist 
 
 spent the winter in the Eternal City, after the wrecking of his 
 lovely house, by the famous explosion on the Regent’s Park 
 Canal. I remember well those days in Rome and the painter’s 
 delight that he had painted the tiger skin so naturally. “ Don’t 
 you see him wag his tail ?” he asked me in his boyish glee. 
 This naive enjoyment of his own work is a delightful trait in 
 Alma Tadema. 
 
 ‘ Cleopatra ’ is a subject the artist has again turned to since 
 its first treatment in 1875. In each case it is difficult to 
 speak of the work. Helen of Troy and Cleopatra are the 
 two great types of female beauty concerning which each 
 individual will have his own ideal. The ideal of the youth 
 
 A Portion of the ‘ Vintage Festival.' {See page 14 .) Engraved by J. D. Cooper. 
 
 who sees “ Helenen in jedem Weibe" will not be that of 
 the matured man. The Cleopatra of the one cannot be the 
 Cleopatra of the other. For ourselves we must confess Alma 
 Tadema’s rendering is not the “serpent of old Nile” of 
 our imagination. Age would wither her, and there is hardly 
 any varying there for custom to stale. It would seem, how- 
 ever, that the painter, always careful, had here too some 
 archjeological basis to work upon for his face of the great 
 Queen. It was modelled upon a bust of her mother, Berenice. 
 
 ‘ After the Dance ’ shows us a figure almost life-size, a Bac- 
 chante lying asleep on a black skin, after some religious 
 debauch. The work is strong and daring, but the form is not 
 truly beautiful. More sympathetic is the ‘ Balneatrix ’ (see 
 
 illustration, page 16), who is waiting to attend on the ladies 
 as they leave their bath. The figure is full of grace, and the 
 face is singularly sweet. ‘The Bath ’ (see illustration, page 
 21) shows us some Roman ladies bathing. ‘ Haystacks’ is a 
 little poem, and ‘Who is it?’ (see illustration), is animated 
 and pleasing. In ‘Hide-and-Seek’ (see illustration, page 17) 
 we are carried back once more to Rome. This is the Villa 
 Albani (a glorified tea-garden, I have heard Tadema irre- 
 verently call it), with its curious tall marble terms. The sun 
 streams down upon the long marble way that leads through 
 the garden to the villa, where a little maid has hidden. But 
 her companion has found her, and looks up at her with 
 laughing face and triumph at having discovered the retreat. 
 
20 
 
 ALMA TADEMA 
 
 A MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. 
 
 Y N 1876 Tadema was elected an Associate of the English 
 -*■ Royal Academy of Arts, an election that gave him great 
 pleasure, as it testified to his full admission amid the ranks 
 of those English artists among whom he trad, since his arrival 
 in England, wholly cast his lot. The news reached nim 
 while he was spending the winter in Rome, busilv making 
 studies of antique Art and architecture. The first picture 
 exhibited after this election was the ‘Agrippa.’ 
 
 The four ‘ Seasons ’ belong to the next year, and show us 
 in four different scenes the embodiment as conceived by him of 
 Spiing, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. ‘Spring,’ draped in 
 white in the midst of flowers, is very fresh and sweet, and the 
 flower-gathering figures are full of suggestion. This is their 
 spring-time as well as 
 that of spring. In 
 ‘ Summer,’ in a large 
 green bronze bath, is 
 sitting one woman, 
 while another, clad in 
 a saffron-coloured gar- 
 ment, sits in an atti- 
 tude of graceful aban- 
 donment on its edge. 
 
 Rose-leaves strewn 
 with a liberal hand 
 float upon the surface 
 of the water. We have 
 wonderful mosaics in 
 this work, and the roses 
 in the woman’s hair, 
 the yellow fan in her 
 hand, make a strik- 
 ingly bright effect. It 
 is all dazzlingly bright, 
 for is it not sum- 
 mer ? In ‘Autumn’ we 
 have a Roman wine- 
 store. There is a 
 lighted tripod by the 
 term of the god, to 
 whom a woman in 
 a deep reddish robe 
 poursalibation. ‘Win- 
 ter,’ too, is Roman in 
 subject. Three women 
 are grouped round a 
 brazier, and the light 
 that we have here is no longer that of the clear spring-time, 
 of summer in its glory, or autumn in its strength. There 
 is snow in it, and as we gaze we feel half inclined to hold 
 out our hands to the brazier, so cold has it grown. Alma 
 Tadema’s ‘ Seasons’ are admirably expressive, and each tells 
 its story perfectly. 
 
 The ‘ Sculptor’s Model ’ is a life-size study of a nude model, 
 one of the very few things done in that style by Tadema. This 
 particular picture was painted as a lesson for his now successful 
 pupil, John Collier. The sculptor is busy modelling the female’s 
 form. The girl stands with her left hand raised to her hair, 
 in her right she holds a palm-branch ; her head is slightly 
 
 bent, and she seems resting the weight of her body on one 
 hip. Tadema was incited to the subject by the discovery in 
 1874 of the Esquiline Venus. The sculptor’s model was an 
 essay at a reconstruction of this noble statue. The background 
 is full of subtle harmonies of colour, the flesh is well painted, 
 but the whole picture fails to impress deeply ; indeed, the work 
 leaves us decidedly cold, and its nudeness is rather unpleasant, 
 not beautiful, because a little lacking in ideality. ‘ Between 
 Hope and Fear,’ the form of an old man full of quiet strength, 
 was also one of this year’s pictures ; nor must we omit the 
 delicious ‘ Kitchen Garden,’ to which we have already referred 
 in passing. 
 
 In the year 1878 we have the thoroughly charming ‘ Love 
 
 Missile,’ a young girl 
 throwing her lover a 
 letter hidden ina bunch 
 of glorious roses. The 
 attitude of the girl as 
 she half leans upon a 
 couch is full of grace, 
 and there is a little 
 touch of comedy in the 
 whole work that adds 
 to its delightful fresh- 
 ness. But the year is 
 chiefly memorable for 
 the ‘ Fredegonda.’ In 
 this production the 
 painter returned to the 
 old chronicles that had 
 fascinated his youth. 
 The reason for this 
 “return to the barba- 
 rians’’ is not far to 
 seek. Indeed, the 
 painter has himself 
 given us that reason 
 in his “They are so 
 picturesque.” This ele- 
 ment of picturesque- 
 ness has been brought 
 out to the full by '1 a- 
 dema in ‘ Fredegonda.’ 
 A few years previously 
 he had contributed 
 some pictures to the 
 Old Water-colour So- 
 ciety’s Gallery, illustrating certain passages in the lives of Fre- 
 degonda and Galswintha. One of these dealt with Fredegonda 
 watching the marriage of her husband with her rival. I he 
 work with which we are now dealing is a later, more finished, 
 and more powerful version of the same scene. Fredegonda, 
 seated at an open window, whose curtain she is half drawing 
 aside, sees Galswintha standing with bowed head by the great 
 oak, while Chilperic, he who had been her husband and was 
 now abandoning her, “breaks the willow branch,” the great 
 Frankish marriage ceremony, over the head of his new bride. 
 All about them stand priests, and bishops, and singers. There 
 are acolytes, too, and the air is thick with the fumes from the 
 
 Herr Barnny as Marc Antony. (See page 23 .) Engraved by Carl Dietrich. 
 

 
 \ 
 
 ft 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 2 I 
 
 censers that they swing. An attendant on the bride bears 
 the Visigothic crown of gold, mounted on a long staff. Beyond 
 is a church in red brick. Fredegonda is half reclining on her 
 couch, and there is that in the half 
 graceful, half ferocious pose that in- 
 voluntarily suggests both the grace 
 and the ferocity of the tiger. The 
 face is very beautiful ; especially lovely 
 is the long fair hair with the jewels 
 twined about it. We meet this hair 
 many a time in Tadema’s pictures. 
 
 But it is not the beauty of the face 
 we remember; it is its expression. 
 
 For ourselves we confess we could 
 hardly say now what were her fea- 
 tures ; but we remember clearly the 
 look of the eyes, and, above all, of the 
 mouth. It seemed to grow white as 
 we looked at it. There is nothing 
 coarse in the terrible passion of this 
 face ; all is quiet, self-contained. But 
 it is the face of her who in the Mero- 
 vingian mythic stories to some extent 
 embodies the hatred against Rome, 
 the fierce struggle of the old Barba- 
 rians against the new civilised power. 
 
 The force of this picture lies in the 
 tine rendering of passion, of a pas- 
 sion that typifies a whole epoch of 
 history in one woman’s beautiful form. 
 
 There is a certain want of pathos in 
 the expression, of the pathos we mo- 
 derns half expect to find there. But 
 it is the very absence of pathos in 
 our nineteenth-century sense that is 
 one of the chief merits of a very re- 
 markable work. It may be well here 
 to say a word about Tadema’s water- 
 colours — no less finished, no less lu- 
 minous and beautiful than his oils. 
 
 He works this medium with rare 
 mastery, and so strong, so delicate 
 withal, and so finished are his water- 
 colour drawings, that for perfection 
 of craftsmanship there is nothing to 
 choose between the two methods, as 
 produced by his brush, except the 
 greater richness and depth that re- 
 sides of itself in the older medium. 
 
 ‘ Architecture in Ancient Rome ’ 
 shows us an architect — he is no longer 
 a young man, but is still full of 
 strength and energy — who, standing 
 on a scaffolding, is critically consi- 
 dering an ornamental sketch that lies 
 at his feet. He has not yet decided 
 whether the work will or will not do, 
 and the look of anxiety on the face 
 ot the man to his right and at his 
 feet, who awaits the master’s sen- 
 tence, is well rendered. Below, in the distance— and a won- 
 derful effect of distance the painter has managed to convey — 
 workmen are moving about busily in a scene full of animation. 
 
 The work is in every respect a counterpart of the ‘ The 
 Sculptor ’ at work on the colossal head of Augustus. 
 
 In the ‘ Hearty Welcome ’ we again have a picture full of 
 light and shade and fresh joyousness. 
 Into a garden full of flowers, of which 
 we specially notice poppies that differ 
 entirely from those in the ‘ Tarquin,’ 
 and sunflowers gorgeous in colour, 
 the sun peeps through trellised vines 
 with all the warmth of the lovely 
 south. Bathed with the light of sun 
 and flowers, stands a child who is 
 welcoming home its mother. Behind 
 them is the father, bearing a scroll 
 in hand. He and the eldest daughter, 
 who is stooping down to stroke a dog f 
 have both returned with the mother. 
 An old attendant is there too, and 
 even the dog looks a welcome and 
 shares in the general pleasure. The 
 whole is simple enough but very 
 sweet. This picture was painted for 
 Sir Henry Thompson : the figures re- 
 present Tadema himself, his wife and 
 daughters. 
 
 ‘ Not at Home ’ takes us from a 
 Roman garden into a Roman house. 
 Near a doorway a young girl has 
 hidden herself. Another, her arms 
 outspread before the velum, is per- 
 juring herself by assuring a gentle- 
 man that the other maid is “not at 
 home.” She is so evidently “fib- 
 bing,” that the gentleman is trying 
 to peep in and find out the fact for 
 himself. The usual marbles, mo- 
 saics, and draperies are to the fore; 
 but rarely has Tadema given us any- 
 thing more beautiful than the bronze 
 seat in this picture. 
 
 ‘ Down totheRiver’ (see illustration, 
 p. 1 8) is yet another Roman scene. A 
 lady and her child with theirattendants 
 are going down some steps to the ri- 
 ver’s bank, w'here a nigger boatman is 
 waiting to row them down the Tiber. 
 Another lady has already gone lower 
 down the steps than this one, and is 
 apparently coming to terms with the 
 boatman. We have a long view of 
 the bridge, and beneath it the green- 
 blue water looks pleasantly fresh. 
 
 ‘ In the Time of Constantine ’ is 
 not without that touch of humour 
 which we have before had occasion 
 to notice in some of Tadema’s works. 
 Two men clad in Roman costume sit- 
 ting in a shady garden are energe- 
 tically engaged in teaching a small 
 dog to beg. Here very ably and 
 with subtlety the artist has impressed on us the fact that in 
 the time of Constantine the Romans were weak, had sunk 
 from their early high estate, so that the Barbarians were to 
 
 The Bath. [See page 19 ) Engraved by J. P. Davis. 
 
r> 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 find them an easy prey and could take the power out of their 
 hands. It is worth mention that one of the men is supposed 
 to have been a Scotchman, and the dog with which these 
 “grave seignors ” toy is a Scotch terrier. 
 
 ‘ Pomona’s Festival ’ gives us dancers round a tree, and 
 there is in this picture all the unreasoned, delightfully sponta- 
 neous animal enjoyment that only the south full)' understands 
 how to enjoy and to express. The ‘Harvest Festival’ is a 
 gem of colouring, all aglow with rich tints. ‘ After the 
 Audience ’ had not been exhibited in London till it was in 
 the Grosvenor Collection in 1882. It is a pendant to the 
 ‘Agrippa,’ and with quiet humour depicts the whole party 
 returning to the house, their backs turned to the spectators. 
 Tadema had been asked to make a replica of the ‘ Agrippa,’ 
 and this is how he made it. 
 
 Another charming work is the ‘Departure.’ Here we are 
 taken into a Pompeian house ; outside the door, which is 
 held open by a slave, stands a carriage waiting. A mother is 
 stooping down to kiss her little girl good-bye. She is going 
 away, evidently to some neighbouring place, for the good-bye 
 is no sad one. Indeed, we see in the distance the goal of her 
 journey, the amphitheatre. On a pedestal stands a bust of 
 the father ; beyond the carriage we again have one of those 
 introductions of light and outer air which we have already 
 referred to on several occasions. The owner of this picture, 
 the German novelist, George Ebers, says, in speaking of it, 
 “ What gives this gem of a picture especial value is, that the 
 beautiful young woman with the violets in her hair is the 
 wife of the painter himself ; that the little daughter is the 
 charming Miss Anna Tadema, and that the bust on the 
 pedestal represents the master. All three are admirably hit 
 off, and are easily recognisable.” The theme itself was sug- 
 gested in the first instance by the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus. 
 
 To these years belongs one of the smallest, but one of 
 the very loveliest pictures that Alma Tadema has painted, 
 one of those pictures that dwell in the memory like the strain 
 of some sweet song. The little work — the adjective refers 
 only to its size — was called ‘A Question.’ Beside a sea of 
 perfect blue, beneath a blue and cloudless sky, a youth and 
 maiden are together. She sits on a white marble seat near 
 this blue sea, her lap full of roses. He leans upon the marble 
 and asks her the question. It is not difficult to guess what 
 this question is ; what but the old, old story, ever new, ever 
 fresh and ever sweet ! The air is hot with that cloudless sunny 
 heat we northerners can but dream about. It is a picture 
 perfect in every detail, and, as a whole, full of youth and 
 beauty and delight. To look at it is to grow young again, 
 and gazing at these two, the youth and the maid, we cannot 
 but murmur Shelley’s words — 
 
 “ With thy clear keen joyance 
 Languor cannot be, 
 
 Shadow of annoyance, 
 
 Never came near thee, 
 
 Thou lovest but ne’er knew’st love’s sad satiety.” 
 
 The charm of this picture so took hold of Ebers, that he 
 wrote, inspired by it, his prose idyl of the same name. It is 
 not to be wondered at perhaps that Alma Tadema has made 
 many variants of this scene, both in oil and water colour. 
 
 To the same period belongs also the charming ‘ Well-pro- 
 tected Slumber’ (see illustration, page 23), which was painted 
 in 1879, an d although like many another canvas Tadema has 
 painted, it yet possesses a strong individuality, and invites 
 by its simplicity, its softness and delicacy. 
 
 The year 1881 is memorable chiefly as the ‘ Sappho ’ year; 
 but ere touching on what, with a few other works, shared the 
 chief honour of the Academy of that year, we must glance at 
 some other pictures of the same period. 
 
 ‘ Quiet Pets ’ (see Frontispiece) shows us a lady feeding 
 tortoises. Quiet is the very word to use for the picture ; it is 
 quiet and harmonious, and Alma Tadema has made a most 
 dexterous use of furs and marble. ‘The Tepidarium,’ too, 
 was a very charming work, with many of the qualities, but 
 also a few of the defects, of the painter. ‘ An Audience ’ 
 consists of three women in Roman costume, seen in pro- 
 file. ‘Pandora’ (see page illustration) is lost in contempla- 
 tion of some treasure from the deep. ‘ A Torch Dance ’ 
 represents a Bacchante treading her measure before a tem- 
 ple. The bronze doors are slightly opened, and reveal the 
 flute-players within. There is a certain wildness in the move- 
 ment of the dancer that is very happily rendered. In 
 ‘Sappho’ (see page etching), as with the ‘Cleopatra,’ this 
 poetess does not appear to most as their ideal Muse. She 
 sits by a kind of desk, on which lies the wreath bound with 
 ribbons that is the crown of poets, and is clad in one of those 
 combinations of pale green and grey that Tadema loves ; 
 violets, as is fitting and in accordance with tradition, crown 
 her black hair — black as a raven’s wing ; and the violets, the 
 grey and the green of the dress, harmonise exquisitely with 
 the dark complexion of the face. By her side stands her 
 daughter. There is something sweet and virginal in the 
 earnest face, and the form is graceful. But the daughter is 
 not beautiful like the mother. Behind Sappho rise three tiers 
 of a marble exedra, and on these, in various attitudes, sit 
 three pupils of her school. But beautiful as are many of 
 these forms, and interesting as they all are, they are not the 
 real soul of the picture. This is Alcaeus, who, opposite 
 Sappho, clothed in a pale rose-coloured garment, sits half 
 reclining touching the strings of a lute. The story runs that 
 Alcaeus wished to gain Sappho’s support for a political 
 scheme of which he was head and front ; and the story runs 
 also that he loved her, and in the passionate expression of 
 his eyes and mouth we here read rather the lover than the 
 politician. But that which makes this picture live in the 
 memory is more especially its indescribable colouring. Often 
 has Tadema given us delicious little bits of blue sky, but 
 never such a sky as this, that has a depth, a clearness 
 such as no other living painter could possibly have given. 
 The dark blue skies of other artists have a way of looking 
 very much like what they are, pieces of canvas daubed with 
 dark blue. To give atmosphere to their skies, most painters 
 must give us clouds. Tadema alone can give us such a 
 southern heaven as this, one mass of deep rich blue, looking 
 all the deeper, all the bluer, from its contrast with the dark 
 leaves of the stone pines that separate the amphitheatre from 
 the shore. Through these we see the sea, that seems posi- 
 tively to ebb and flow. The marble of the seats is pure 
 white — dazzlingly white in this clear light and sunshine. We 
 heard a curiously clever remark on the effect of this picture 
 from a tiny little child. She said, “When I look at that,” 
 pointing to the ‘ Sappho,’ “ I should like to wear clothes like 
 that, I feel so hot in these." ‘ En Repos,’ ‘ Reflection,* 
 ‘Cleopatra,’ the second ‘Cleopatra’ of the painter, and 
 ‘ Young Affections,’ this last a delicious garden scene of a 
 white term of Silenus standing amid masses of flowers and 
 leaves, with a lady and child in the foreground, are all works 
 belonging to 1882. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 -j 
 
 In this year’s work we must not omit to mention the por- 
 trait of Herr Barnay as Marc Antony, ilhe moment chosen 
 (see illustration, page 20) is that of the speech over Caesar. 
 'Phis is the Antony of Shakespeare, perhaps, rather than of 
 history, but we like him not the less well for this. Those who 
 saw the fine performance of the German actor will admit that 
 Tadema has here very thoroughly caught the expression of 
 the face, the manner of the man. In this work, too, the flesh 
 is splendidly modelled, a matter in which Tadema is not 
 always quite successful. Perhaps we notice the background 
 in this portrait a little more than we should, but as it is a 
 good background in itself, we cannot complain 
 of what is possibly a slight artistic mistake. 
 
 In 1883 Tadema’ s chief work was the 
 lovely ‘ Oleander,’ his diploma picture, ‘ The 
 Way to the Temple,’ ‘ Shy’ (see illustration, 
 page 25), and some portraits. The ‘ Ole- 
 ander ’ represents a magnificent specimen 
 of this tree so loved of the Romans. Its 
 glorious pink blossoms stand out against a 
 red wall, and the great branches spread 
 across a corridor. Through them we see the 
 sunlight playing on the water with one of 
 those effects of which neither Tadema nor his 
 admirers seem to tire. Near the oleander 
 sfls a woman clad in dark green and blue, 
 and in this case the charge of giving less 
 soul to his human beings than to his stones, 
 not even to speak of flowers, is not unfounded. 
 
 In fact, we hardly notice, certainly do not re- 
 member this woman, while the pink blossoms, 
 the yellow columns of the corridor, the sunlit 
 water, all stand out clear and distinct. Of 
 this Alma Tadema seems himself to have 
 been conscious to a certain degree, for he has 
 called his picture ‘ An Oleander,’ thus tacitly 
 admitting that the woman has more or less 
 been thrown in as an accessory to the flowers. 
 
 ‘On the Way to the Temple’ (see illustra- 
 tion, page 27), though far better than the usual 
 run of diploma works, can hardly be considered 
 one of the finest specimens of this painter’s 
 art. Once again we have a temple, we see its 
 shady interior contrasted with the sunshine 
 on its columns. Beneath its portico pass 
 the votaries of Bacchus ; they sing as they 
 move along to do homage to the god. In 
 the foreground, in the shade, sits a priestess. 
 
 She holds in her hand a statuette; by her 
 side stands a tripod ; upon her yellow reddish 
 hair rests a wreath, and her robe is red and 
 pink. There is a strange, wistful look in her eyes. We half 
 wonder why she is sitting there, and if she is not waiting for 
 some one. But perhaps the strange eyes are only straining 
 to see the god himself. She is there really, as we know, to 
 sell offerings to the devout. That this work has many admir- 
 able qualities no one is likely to dispute, but its technique is 
 certainly not so perfect as Tadema has taught us to expect 
 from him. He has no one but himself to blame if we make 
 great demands upon him, and if, falling a little below his 
 ordinary level, we are disappointed and indulge in a small 
 grumble. ‘ Shy’ is a pleasant, happy subject, which tells its 
 own story simply and directly. 
 
 In 1884 Tadema first came before the public markedly with 
 claims to be also a portrait painter. Whether this be truly 
 his line the general public allows itself to doubt, fine as are 
 the specimens he has placed before them. It appears too 
 much as if he could model the outside man, but did not 
 penetrate to the soul, as if he did not read into the deeps of 
 the character that was before him. With men he has shown 
 himself more successful than with women, as notice his 
 Dr. Epps (see illustration, page 26), and especially with 
 the two specimens of his skill that the Grosvenor Gallery of 
 that year exhibited. One of these was the picture of Amendola, 
 
 the Italian sculptor, who is painted in his studio dress, a silver 
 statuette in his hand. The modelling of the work is as 
 excellent as the wonderfully clear tone and fine flesh painting. 
 On all details, which Tadema knows so well to turn into 
 integral portions of his pictures, he has lavished even more 
 than his ordinary care. The statuette is a masterpiece of 
 design and colouring. This perhaps we may account for by 
 the fact that it represents Mrs. Tadema. The second portrait 
 was that of Mr. Lowenstam, the etcher, sitting at an engraving 
 table with a copperplate before him. The effect of light in 
 this picture is excellent. It falls upon the figure through one 
 of those half-transparent screens used by the professors of the 
 
2 4 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 needle’s art. There is perhaps even greater breadth of handling 
 in this portrait than in the one of the Italian sculptor. 
 
 The Academy picture of 1884 was the celebrated ‘ Hadrian 
 in England,’ and is remarkable for several reasons ; because 
 it is the first time that Tadema has dealt with Roman Britain, 
 a period well-nigh absolutely neglected ; and also because it is 
 one of his largest works. At the top of the picture stands the 
 Emperor, who with his followers is visiting a British pottery, 
 probably a famous one of the period. The master-potter is 
 showing his work, and the Emperor looks on with a kind of 
 resigned determination that is excellently hit off. He is going 
 to “ do ” this thing, and though perhaps in his heart he does 
 not feel much interested or capable of “ living up ” to these 
 pots, he will go through with his task to the bitter end. His 
 toga is of beautiful purple, bis tunic crimson, the other gar- 
 ments quieter in tone. Behind him stands his friend, Lucius 
 Verus, one of the best figures in the work. There is that in the 
 full coarse lips and eyes, in the indolent pose as he leans lazily 
 upon a staff, which tells a whole history. He is a type not merely 
 of a luxurious Roman, but of a luxurious man. To the Em- 
 peror’s right stand Balbilla, a blue-stocking of her time, and the 
 Empress, the latter talking with the potter’s wife, whose blue 
 gown contrasts admirably with the rich reds. These are all 
 grouped on a gallery, from which a flight of steps descends to 
 the bottom of the picture. On it, his back towards us, is a slave, 
 who, tray in hands, bears vases for inspection by the Emperor. 
 He is followed by another slave, and the two fill the lower part 
 of the picture. Beneath the arch of the gallery is a room 
 where the potters are at work, small in scale; but that to many 
 persons is the most interesting portion of the whole picture. 
 There is a charm about this workshop which is wanting in the 
 other groups and figures. The corridor is adorned with a 
 picture of Mercury, and on the shelves in an alcove are seen 
 specimens of black and grey pottery of exquisite form and 
 colour. But one of the most effective bits, one of those 
 interesting little reproductions of antique life in which Alma 
 Tadema is so eminently happy, represents the altar of the 
 household god. A snake is painted round it, and by a little 
 lamp there is placed a votive offering of onions, sacred to the 
 Penates. The potters have painted this inscription as a 
 welcome to their Emperor : — 
 
 Ave , Imperator Caesar, 
 
 Divi Trajani Parth. filius, 
 
 Divi Nervae nepos, 
 
 Trajanus Hadrianus, 
 
 Locupletator Orbis. 
 
 Hadrian was not, indeed, declared locupletator by the senate 
 till after the date of this picture, but Alma Tadema thinks that 
 it would probably be in some grateful colony that the title 
 would first be, unofficially, suggested. The deep reds of the 
 stairs show up the figures of the slaves and the rich dresses of 
 Hadrian and his suite, and contrast well with the black 
 pottery. The work was acknowledged to be a masterpiece of 
 skill, but it lacks interest. We do not particularly care for any 
 one person in the picture, and its interest decreases rather 
 than increases as we mount the stairs to the Emperor, of whose 
 group the best characterized figure is that of Verus. But in 
 finish, in richness and harmony of colouring, Tadema himself 
 has rarely produced anything finer than this fine work. We 
 are, however, conscious of a certain sense of disproportion in 
 the attention we lavish upon, e.g. the onions and the Emperor. 
 It is of interest to note that this picture was painted at the 
 suggestion of Mr. Minton, while the Roman British pottery 
 
 has been carefully studied from all specimens extant in 
 England. 
 
 The next works which claim our attention are the altogether 
 charming classic-genre pictures that Tadema has made his 
 speciality, ‘ Expectations ’ and ‘ Who is it ? ’ (see page illus- 
 tration). We experience a physical delight in looking at 
 these works. The sensation can only be compared to that 
 of looking at something quite beautiful and whose beauty 
 makes us glad. In ‘ Expectations,’ a girl clothed in white is 
 sitting on a marble seat that stands on the summit of a cliff. 
 She is very lovely, and those who may have noted that Alma 
 ladema’s hands and arms are not always quite satisfactory — 
 a scientist once declared some of his women’s arms were 
 positively simian in their length — will see with pleasure the per- 
 fection of this maiden’s hands. Her figure is one of rare grace 
 as she reposes here, the warm sunshine about her, watching 
 eagerly the skiff that is skimming over the water, and which we 
 may venture to think holds her lover. The marble is wonderful, 
 even for this painter, and the glorious Judas-tree fiower on the 
 branch above the marble contrasting with the white of the robe, 
 the soft delicacy of the skin, the bright, sunlit sea, all this 
 produces an effect of well-nigh indescribable sweetness. The 
 flowers might almost be human beings, and the maiden is 
 “flower-like;” “so tender, pure, and fair;” and, as Heine 
 says, in gazing upon her a feeling of sadness, not without its 
 delights, “ steals on us unaware,” Perhaps the small clouds 
 gathering overhead despite all the sunshine account for this 
 sadness, this pleasure-pain. 
 
 ‘Who is it?’ is another of those scenes that Tadema invests 
 with such peculiar life and meaning. Three girls in Roman 
 gowns are grouped in the marble alcove of a window. They 
 are tall, “divinely fair,” and apparently very daughters of 
 Eve, for one of them peers over the window-sill (she has 
 climbed upon the bench to get a better view) to find out ‘ Who 
 is it?’ So life-like is the action we half expect to see her draw 
 back suddenly after being found out peeping in this somewhat 
 undignified position. The three maids are all charming, but 
 there is a certain piquant grace about the prying damsel that 
 marks her off from her companions. If she were a child we 
 should say she was a little pickle. 
 
 In ‘ A Reading from Homer ’ (see page illustration), we have 
 a scene reminding us of others of Tadema’s works. To the 
 right is the reader, holding in his hands a papyrus. He is ex- 
 plaining the argument, in which we may be sure there is “no 
 offence.” His face is alight with enthusiasm ; he leans for- 
 ward in his eagerness in a pose full of grace. He is partly 
 robed in a rose-coloured garment, and sits on a bench, the blue 
 sky above, the blue sea beyond him. His head is crowned with 
 bay. He is going to read to four persons ; one, a woman, 
 daffodils in her fair hair and with a sort of tambourine in one 
 hand, lies on the bench. With her left hand she clasps that 
 of a youth reclining upon the ground below her. He is clad 
 in blue ; in his hand he holds a lyre. His face is strangely 
 beautiful, as with his light brown eyes he looks at the man who 
 speaks to them. He is full of fire and enthusiasm, a head to 
 remember, almost to be haunted by; nor is it merely beautiful, 
 there is far more than mere beauty in it. In the centre, lying 
 on the marble floor, chin in hand, is yet another man clothed 
 in goat skins ; he is looking up with deepest interest. To the 
 left stands a man crowned with flowers wearing a cloak. 
 There is a certain wildness, almost haggardness in this face. 
 On the bench there is also a mass of flowers that give not 
 merely colour, but character to the whole. The flesh painting 
 
WHO IS IT ? Engraved by F. Babbage. 
 

 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 | 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
ALMA. TADEMA. 
 
 in this picture is of the very best Alma Tadema has done, and 
 he has certainly never modelled anything- more perfect than 
 the figures of woman and lover. As to the luminosity of the 
 work in its harmonious colouring, it may rank with his very 
 highest efforts. Yet here, despite the charm of the lover’s 
 head and the beauty of his 
 mistress, we again find in the 
 reader the centre of the pic- 
 ture. This is as it should be ; 
 the reader is the chief person, 
 the others only his audience 
 That such a work as this, 
 comprising five large figures, 
 with accessories such as Ta- 
 dema paints, should have been 
 painted in the space of two 
 months seems almost incre 
 dible. Yet this was the case, 
 a rare instance of rapid and 
 finished work. Still, though 
 this actual canvas was com- 
 pleted in so short a space, the 
 preliminary studies, including 
 an abandoned picture that was 
 to have been called ‘ Plato,’ 
 occupied eight months of 
 work. 
 
 Another picture of the year 
 1885 was the portrait ‘ My 
 young-er Daughter, ’ a remark- 
 able work. The figure and its 
 surroundings are a splendid 
 example of Tadema’s manage- 
 ment, not only of colour as 
 such, but of light and shade. 
 
 If it has a fault it is that all 
 the accessories are a little too 
 much elaborated. They dis- 
 tract us from the figure itself, 
 which is the more to be re- 
 gretted that this is full of 
 power. It is an admirable 
 portrait of the young girl, who 
 seems likely to make a name 
 for herself in her father’s pro- 
 fession. The last two years 
 have seen careful works from 
 her brush, in water colour, on 
 the walls of the Royal Aca- 
 demy and the Grosvenor Gal- 
 lery. 
 
 Alma Tadema’s contribu- 
 tion to the Royal Academy of 
 the current year is too fresh 
 in the memory of most per- 
 sons to require much descrip- 
 tion. ‘An Apodyterium,’ re- 
 presenting the ante-chamber 
 or undressing room of women’s 
 
 figures. In the foreground a lady, whose toilette is just com- 
 pleted, is about to pass out into the vestibule. The graceful 
 nude figure seated on the stone bench against the wall, stoop- 
 ing to untie her sandal (see illustration, page 28), affords a 
 skilful contrast ; and in the background some admirably 
 
 * Shy: ^See page 23 .) 
 
 By permission of the Proprietors of the “ English Illustrated Magazine." 
 
 baths in the old Roman Empire, is a masterpiece ot the style 
 with which his name is permanently associated. The marble 
 apartment, itself a delicious study of colour, is a marvel of 
 highly finished painting. It is peopled with a few graceful 
 
 grouped figures are passing through the inner doors com- 
 municating with the actual bathing chambers. In this small 
 canvas we have a representative picture of the painter’s genre, 
 whose perfection he himself would find it hard to surpass. 
 
 H 
 
?.b 
 
 ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 At the present moment the artist is engaged upon what for 
 him is a large picture that deals with an important subject 
 fully worthy of his brush. It will be exhibited at the next 
 Royal Academy Exhibition, and is to be entitled the ‘ Women 
 of Amphissa.’ The subject, culled from Plutarch, will 
 certainly be unfamiliar to the greater mass of the public, and 
 a few words of preliminary explanation may be welcome. 
 Amphissa was a city near to Mount Parnassus. The story 
 runs that some time B.C. 350, “when the despots of Phocis 
 seized upon Delphi, and the Thebans made that war called 
 
 Dr. Epps. {See page 23.) Engraved by Karl Dietrich. 
 
 the Holy upon them, it chanced that the women sacred to 
 Dionysus (who were named Thyades), going mad with passion 
 and wandering by night, came unawares to Amphissa, where, 
 being weary and not yet returned in their right wits, they 
 threw themselves down in the market-place, and scattered 
 here and there, lay sleeping. Whereupon the wives of the 
 Arnphissians, fearing (since the city of Phocis was allied to 
 them, and many of the tyrant soldiers were about) lest the 
 Thyades should not preserve their purity, ran all together to 
 the market-place, and silently stood in a circle round them ; 
 
 nor indeed approached them while they slept, but as soon as 
 they had risen, tended them and brought them food, and 
 afterwards, having got leave of their husbands, went forth 
 with them, leading them in safety even to the boundaries of 
 their own land.” There are more than forty female figures 
 introduced into this work, some semi-nude in true Bacchic 
 attire, the others, their kind protectors, clothed in the flowing 
 garments made familiar to us in Tadema’s work. It is too 
 early to speak critically of a picture that even, however, in 
 this early stage, is full of magnificent promise. 
 
 With this picture we have brought Alma 
 Tadema’s work down to the present time, 
 and we have purposely, in glancing thus ra- 
 pidly over a certain number of his most 
 celebrated works, preserved the chronolo- 
 gical order, both as being more interesting 
 to the reader to watch the progress and 
 development of the artist, and also as being 
 more convenient for purposes of reference. 
 Happily he is still in the full vigour of his 
 strength and manhood, and may live to 
 double the number of his works, of which 
 the latest is Opus 275 ; for this artist fol- 
 lows the laudable practice of musicians and 
 numbers each work, so that there can never 
 arise with regard to his paintings any doubt 
 as to their chronological order. But, as we 
 have seen, he is an artist who has his 
 groove, a wide and ample one, but yet his 
 own distinct manner and method. He is 
 not likely, therefore, to present us with works 
 of an entirely different style and character 
 from those we have previously received. 
 Opinions upon him must naturally differ ac- 
 cording to the tastes of the individual be- 
 holders. That he is a great artist not even 
 his detractors can deny. Some, indeed, may 
 find that he fails in the quality of spirituality. 
 Even as a colourist, unrivalled though he 
 is in many respects, others will say that he 
 has not the poetic feeling of, for example, a 
 Turner. But even granting that there may 
 be some little justice in these reproaches 
 of shortcomings, granting even a want of 
 beauty in some of his men and women, no 
 one will question Alma Tadema’s remarkable 
 genius, and above all its originality. He is 
 himself, no small virtue in these days of platitude and 
 philistinism. His love of nature too is sincere and honest, 
 no mere affectation. A sapphire sea with its white-crested 
 waves, a blue sky, sweet-smelling flowers, these are dear to 
 Tadema for something more than the simple effect that can 
 be got out of them, and the fact that he loves them for more 
 than effect, makes his effects so fine. In brief, we have in 
 Alma Tadema a man who is genuine all round ; genuine, 
 honest, true, and beauty-enamoured. 
 
ALMA TADEMA, 
 
 27 
 
 THE ARTIST INTERVIEWED. 
 
 A RTISTS, as a rule, have rarely the power of literary 
 expression, can rarely formulate their ideas concerning 
 their craft. They 
 can generally only 
 consciously or un- 
 consciously ex- 
 press these in 
 form, and this 
 mode of expres- 
 sion is more often 
 than not uncon- 
 scious and unrea- 
 soned, an instinc- 
 tive rather than a 
 theoretical embo- 
 diment. Alma 
 Tadema can 
 scarcely be called 
 an entire excep- 
 tion to this rule. 
 
 His mind is not 
 analytic. Still, he 
 has, of course, his 
 views on Art, and 
 most interesting 
 they are, as the 
 views of a worker 
 in any profession 
 must always be, 
 and above all, the 
 views of a master 
 workman. To lis- 
 ten to him, as he 
 pours out his 
 thoughts on his 
 beloved career 
 while working 
 away at some mi- 
 nute detail in his 
 picture, in the in- 
 tervals that exist 
 between the con- 
 sumption of one 
 cigarette and the 
 lighting of an- 
 other, is to have 
 a real and rare 
 treat. I put down 
 for the benefit of 
 that large public 
 who will care to 
 know what Alma 
 Tadema thinks of 
 Art, a few utter- 
 ances of his, taken 
 down verbally 
 from his lips, and 
 retaining in al- 
 most every case 
 the racy, not al- 
 
 ways idiomatic, English in which the great painter expresses 
 himself. For we must bear in mind that the English tongue 
 
 is only an acquired 
 speech to him, ac- 
 quired, too, in ma- 
 ture life. In his 
 first utterance he 
 gives the keynote 
 to his ideas : — 
 
 “ Art is imagi- 
 nation, and those 
 who love Art love 
 it because in look- 
 ing at a picture it 
 awakens their 
 imagination and 
 sets them think- 
 ing ; and that is 
 also why Art 
 heightens the 
 mind.” 
 
 Going on to 
 speak of the need 
 for accurate vision 
 in an artist, he 
 said : — 
 
 ‘‘To see, you 
 must have a cer- 
 tain knowledge. 
 Thus for an ordi- 
 nary man all sheep 
 are alike ; but a 
 shepherd knows 
 each sheep sepa- 
 rately, just as we 
 know our friends. 
 When Rosa Bon- 
 heur, some years 
 ago, bought out 
 of a herd of sheep 
 one that pleased 
 her, she was sur- 
 prised by the shep- 
 herd’s bringing 
 her next day a dif- 
 ferent animal to 
 the one she had 
 chosen, and going 
 back with him, 
 was able to pick 
 out the one she 
 •wanted, to the as- 
 tonishment of the 
 man, who had not 
 believed that a 
 woman could 
 know so much 
 about sheep. Un- 
 fortunately, a lot 
 of youngsters in 
 
8 
 
 ALMA TAD EM A. 
 
 our day speak of what they see, and they can’t see because 
 they don’t know enough.” 
 
 I begged him to speak of Art in general, with special 
 reference to modern Art. Here follows what he replied : — ■ 
 
 “ One of the greatest difficulties in Art is to find a subject 
 that is really pictorial, plastic. Many painters have sinned 
 on that score. Of course the subject is an interesting point 
 in a picture, but the subject is merely the pretext under which 
 the picture is made, therefore it is wrong to judge the picture 
 according to the subject. I have known very bad pictures 
 painted from good subjects, and also very good pictures 
 painted from bad subjects. In our day, however, Art is, as 
 a rule, judged by literary people, who are often incapable of 
 
 seeing in a picture anything besides the subject, and judge 
 accordingly. I remember that a great professor of history 
 at the University of Ghent, repeatedly recommended me to 
 paint that striking incident in history where William the 
 Silent, when leaving the Netherlands to organize that great 
 struggle with Spain, in answer to the parting words of Counts 
 Egrnont and Horn : ‘ Good-bye, noble Prince without a 
 country,’ said — 1 Good-bye, noblemen without heads.’ 
 
 ” Of course the feeling of such a scene cannot be given in 
 a picture. What subject is there in the Venus of Milo that 
 can be written down ? Yet, nobody will deny that it is one 
 of the greatest works of Art. Wnat subject is there in 
 
 Raphael’s Sistine Madonna? It is in the ecstasy, of the 
 Madonna, the beautiful serenity of the Venus, that lies the 
 charm. Art must be beautiful, because Art must elevate, 
 not teach ; when Art teaches, in the common sense of the 
 word, it becomes accessory to some other object. 
 
 “ In elevating it only teaches because it ennobles the mind. 
 Now you have that great question of modernity in Art, which 
 has been so much talked of, since Courbet began to paint any 
 low subject he came across, and Alfred Stevens, his advertise- 
 ments for the Parisian dressmaker. I do not mean to say 
 that their pictures are the worse for it, are not beautiful as 
 pictures, but these two pre-eminent apostles of the hollow 
 notion that you must paint your own time, have, in reality, 
 never tried to give us any feeling of our 
 own time. Modern Art means a modern 
 expression of Art ; the most modern of 
 painters are those who succeed in producing 
 good Art which is not like what has been 
 done before, which is in keeping with the 
 feeling of the day. If they paint a land- 
 scape, or a portrait, or a home scene, or an 
 historical or religious picture, they must try 
 to give in their work that which moves our 
 time. We are no longer, for instance, the 
 people of the religion of death, as in the 
 days of Holbein, and a Danse Macabre 
 would not speak to our minds and move 
 the world as his did in his time. We now 
 look out for cheerful things, and prefer a 
 beam of sunshine to a storm. We be- 
 lieve, in fact, that with kindness we can be 
 more successful than with oppression. A 
 smile is more pleasant to us than a tear, 
 and we no longer find the fanatic love for 
 skulls that existed in centuries gone by. 
 In history we are no longer satisfied with 
 the king or the great general alone, but we 
 want to know who the people were over 
 whom the king reigned ; who the soldiers 
 were that made the general victorious. We 
 like to know that Hadrian contributed to 
 the happiness of his subjects by looking into 
 their wants and helping them where he 
 could ; and we love to think that a Marcus 
 Aurelius, by doing so much to improve the 
 moral standing of his time, merited more 
 gratitude from mankind, perhaps, than a 
 Julius Ctesar or an Alexander the Great. 
 Modern Art hunts after truthfulness, per- 
 haps, more than in times gone by ; hence 
 the hollow name of realistic. Some people 
 think that realism in Art means, to paint what they see ; 
 it, in reality, means to render the subject more naturally, 
 in a way more true to nature. Nature has so many aspects, 
 is so individual in every form it produces, in every senti- 
 ment it awakes, that no two people can see, feel, and think 
 the same way, and, consequently, ‘ true to nature ’ does 
 not mean ‘true to what is before you,’ because Art cannot 
 be measured. Art is the rendering of an impression re- 
 ceived, which must be individual and of which the rendering 
 must be personal. For instance, given a woman beautiful in 
 all senses, one will be charmed by her complexion and will 
 paint a picture of her ; another will be charmed with her form 
 
 Study for ‘ An Apodyterium.' [See page 25 .) 
 
READING FROM HOMER. Engraved by Carl Dietrich. 
 
{ 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 2Q 
 
 and will model a statue other. Which of the two is truest to 
 nature ? As for the individuals who receive the impressions of 
 nature, their differences are manifold. There are men who 
 are colour-blind, others are moved to ecstasies by colour; 
 surely between these two expressions of nature there are many 
 degrees. Further, there are people who are form-blind, and 
 others who will go into ecstasies over a beautiful shape. 
 Thus there have been artists, great draughtsmen, who 
 could not paint, having no feeling for colour, and if an artist 
 has received an overpowering gift for form, he becomes a 
 sculptor. 
 
 “ It always astonishes me that our modern public, with its 
 love of the natural, should still be devoted to the old principle 
 of portraiture. A head and some clothes, sometimes one or 
 two hands, and the rest some black or brown. In fact, a portrait 
 depicting a person under conditions they are never seen in. 
 I, for one, never see my friends, never see anybody, without 
 seeing at the same time more or less of the place in which 1 
 meet them ; of course, to paint the surroundings and study 
 them and work the whole into a picture, involves a great 
 deal more trouble than to rub the canvas full of a certain 
 nondescript colour. But if I were to order the portrait of 
 somebody dear to me, I should certainly like to have that 
 person painted surrounded by accessories which awakened 
 in my memory, say a pleasant meeting, or pleasant hours.” 
 
 Concerning the education of young artists, I once heard 
 him say: — “ It is my belief that an Art student ought not to 
 travel ; when once he has become an artist, conscious of his 
 own aim, of his own value, and of his own wants, he will cer- 
 tainly profit by seeing the works of great masters, because he 
 will then be able to understand them, and, if necessary, to 
 appropriate such things as may appear useful to him. 
 
 “ With one or two exceptions, none of the artists who, at 
 various times, gained the Prix de Rome at Paris or Brussels, 
 and were consequently given travelling, scholarships, have 
 stood among the foremost men of their day. On the other 
 hand, Meissonier, Jerome, Leys, remained at home until 
 they were consummate artists ; Rembrandt never left Amster- 
 dam ; and Rubens, when travelling through Italy, made some 
 sketches after Leonardo and others which might well be 
 taken for original Rubenses, because Rubens was already 
 Rubens when he did them Vandyke, Velasquez, travelled 
 when they were really Vandyke andVelasquez, but not before.” 
 
 Of his own pictures, his own mode of giving expression to 
 his theories, Alma Tadema rarely speaks. To be living and 
 modern, for all his archaisms, may be defined as the key-note 
 of his art. It is that which distinguishes it from the works of 
 archaeological painters, who exist by the score, but who have 
 merely striven to depict classical antiquity by slavishly copying 
 its remains. He has the poetic instinct, as well as the originality 
 and boldness, to comprehend with the heart as well as with the 
 head, and it is this that gives him his unique character. 
 
 He has often been reproached with want of imagination, 
 and the reproach vexes him. It is founded on a confusion 
 between imagination in plastic combinations and poetry. 
 Tadema has much imagination, great constructive powers, 
 but he lacks a little that form of sentiment which invests 
 the most commonplace action with a human tenderness that 
 arouses our feelings of fellowship with the persons repre- 
 sented. At the opposite pole of this stands, for example, 
 an artist like Frederick Walker. With the few exceptions 
 I have noted, he avoids in his pictures themes that deal 
 with passion or tenderness. He does not love the deeper tra- 
 
 gedies and problems of our vexed mortal life, he is a Hedonist 
 and depicts life from that stand-point. This necessarily entails 
 upon him certain limitations both of vision, action, and com- 
 prehension. It is perhaps his Dutch origin that deprives him 
 of certain subtleties of feeling. His pictures rarely rouse our 
 deepest, highest emotions. But it is wrong to cavil at receiving 
 no more from a man who gives us so much and gives it in such 
 perfection. 
 
 Alma Tadema, fortunately for himself and the world, is not 
 led astray by success ; he grows, if possible, yet more self- 
 exacting, self-critical, he never loses sight of the fact that 
 ‘‘noblesse oblige.” That as a colourist he is almost unrivalled 
 is well known. With keen scientific knowledge regarding his 
 art, he combines exquisite natural taste, and a faultless 
 manipulation. It is a pleasure to watch him handle his brush 
 and place his strokes, none of which are idly bestowed or fail 
 to tell their tale. In this matter of bestowing the most careful 
 finished workmanship, he has remained a Dutchman. Indeed 
 his precision, his patience in minutiae, are thoroughly Dutch. 
 With a nature as sunny and genial as his art, there is but one 
 thing he hates, and that is perfunctory work, and of course he 
 hates it the most cordially in his own art where he best 
 knows its evidences. “ I love my art,” he says, ‘‘too much to 
 like to see people scamp it ; it makes me furious to see half 
 work, and to see the public taken in by it and unable to under- 
 stand the difference.” 
 
 It is pleasant to be able to add that the man is as estimable 
 as the painter. Honoured by all, he is loved by those who have 
 the privilege to know him well. Warm-hearted and generous, 
 younger artists never appeal to him in vain for help or advice ; 
 his hand is always open, his time, his strength always at the 
 service of the genuine worker, no matter in what department. 
 Egotism is entirely foreign to his nature. His conversation, 
 when he is in the vein for talk, is suggestive and exhilarating 
 in the extreme. He speaks with earnestness and ardour, a 
 happy felicity of language, a graphic, altogether individual 
 power of expression. His talk is like his work ; it has a stamp 
 all its own ; even the most commonplace thing is said by 
 Alma Tadema in a manner that is original. ‘‘All my pictures,” 
 he once said to me, “ are the expression of one idea, they deal 
 with different subjects, but one style of thought is expressed in 
 them.” It is the same with all else concerning him, this great 
 artist is homogeneous throughout. In short Alma Tadema is 
 one of those few remaining original figures which stand out so 
 rarely now, like sturdy rocks in the smooth sea of a tame and 
 conventional world. London society knows well that short, 
 strongly built figure, with its face of kindly strength, its frank, 
 friendly, observant eyes, its cheery voice. Brimful of energy, 
 of ardent love for all that is good and beautiful, he diffuses 
 strength by his mere presence, he lifts those who come in con- 
 tact with him into higher mental spheres, above the base and 
 sordid interests of every day. He is pre-eminently gifted with 
 that gift which, according to Goethe, is the highest and happiest 
 that can be bestowed on mankind, that of personality. It is 
 this that has made Alma Tadema great ; he has a personality, 
 and he dares to be true to it in these modern days when all- 
 levelling conventionality is the fashion of the hour. “ The 
 secret of my success in my art,” I have heard him say, “ is, 
 that I have always been true to my own ideas, that I have 
 worked according to my own head and have not imitated other 
 artists. To succeed in anything in life one must first of all be 
 true to one’s self, and I may say that I have been this.” 
 These words are no idle boast in his mouth. 
 
 i 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 
 HIS HOME AND STUDIO. 
 
 “ T E milieu explique l'honime, l’atelier commente l’ceuvre,” 
 is a luminous saying, and to no artist was this per- 
 haps more applicable than to Alma Tadema. His home and 
 studio were works of Art from his own hands ; in his home 
 bits of his pictures seemed to stand plastically before us ; in 
 his surroundings we better understood the peculiar genius of 
 the master. Tadema’ s house, at the corner of the Townshend 
 Road, and facing one of the prettiest tree-shaded bits of the 
 Regent’s Park and its picturesque canal, was long one of 
 the sights of London for those who were privileged to lift the 
 antique mask of bronze that formed a knocker to the massive 
 oaken house-door, over whose portals was inscribed the 
 friendly greeting, Salve. It is a sad reflection to those who 
 have spent many pleasant hours under that hospitable roof 
 to think that its loveliness, upraised with so much care and 
 
 thought and art, is a thing of the past, now living alone in 
 memory. Last year Tadema quitted this beautiful abode, 
 which had grown too small for his domestic requirements, 
 and it will not be until next year, probably, that the great 
 artist can once more be said to dwell within a home of his 
 creation. Seeing that Townshend House with its glories is 
 a thing of the past, seeing, too, that it has been so often 
 described and illustrated, it seems too late in the day to give 
 once more a detailed account of its charms, its Gothic library, 
 its gold drawing-room, its panelled Dutch room, its columned 
 second drawing-room, with the onyx windows ; its Pompeian 
 studio, with frescoes from the master’s hand; its cheerful 
 dining-room opening on to the garden, which ever in summer 
 presented a wealth of poppies and sunflowers. To those who 
 
 knew it, we repeat, it must be a matter of never-ending regret 
 that such loveliness should not have been permitted to en- 
 dure, and that what was a dream of wonder, a very fairy land 
 in midst of the hum-drum of London life, has once more been 
 converted into a commonplace prosaic London house. For 
 that perhaps was the greatest marvel of it all, that this dwell- 
 ing had not been built for the artist ; that he found it an 
 ordinary town residence, and that by his skill, ingenuity, and 
 taste, he completely transformed and glorified it. The house 
 which will now be his dwelling is also situated near the 
 Regent’s Park, amid the large old-fashioned gardens that 
 still exist in portions of St. John’s Wood. This house is 
 being built almost from the foundations for Tadema. It was 
 an artist’s home before, the dwelling of the Frenchman 
 Tissot ; but of his bachelor residence few traces will remain. 
 
 As yet the outside and 
 inside of the new house 
 are in a state of transi- 
 tion, so that it is not 
 possible to say much 
 about either. The style 
 in which it is built is 
 of no particular period. 
 It has been entirely de- 
 signed by Alma Ta- 
 dema himself, with the 
 technical assistance of 
 Mr. Alfred Calderon. 
 It was begun in the 
 August of last year, and 
 will probably not be en- 
 tirely finished for an- 
 other twelve months. 
 We present to our read- 
 ers three drawings that 
 have been made for this 
 article of the exterior of 
 the house. One is taken 
 from the greenhouse in 
 the garden, and shows 
 the windows of Mrs. 
 Tadema’s future studio 
 and library; another 
 shows the front entrance 
 and large studio win- 
 dow; a third is taken from the street, at the junction of 
 the Abbey and Grove End Roads, and shows the apse of 
 the studio, which will be a great feature in the internal 
 arrangement of this room. It is its creator’s purpose that 
 this residence shall be essentially a worker’s house. I here 
 are to be no superfluous rooms, such as drawing-rooms and 
 merely fancy apartments. All there is, is to be of use. The 
 ground floor will contain the master’s studio as well as his 
 wife’s; also an atrium, dining-room, and library, besides a 
 larger and smaller hall, with the necessary vestibules and 
 passages. A feature is a vast dome-roofed glass house, 
 already attached to the former residence, which, filled with 
 lofty palms, tree-ferns, creepers, and flowering plants, makes 
 an ideal winter garden. The hall, which is to be more 
 
 Principal Entrance : Studio Eront. Prom a Erawing by J. Elmsly Inglis. 
 
ALMA TADEMA. 
 
 3i 
 
 of a sitting-room than a waiting-room, is only separated from 
 this glass house by a wall of glass sliding doors. The 
 effect of this will be most charming. The room or hall itself 
 is to be panelled with white panelling, inlaid with the narrow 
 upright pictures contributed by various artist-friends, which 
 formerly decorated Mrs. Alma Tadema’s studio in Townshend 
 House, comprising paintings by Cecil Van Haanen, Alfred 
 Parsons, Clara Montalba, John O’Connor, Charles Green, 
 E. F. Brewtnell, and several others. The floor of this apart- 
 ment, as well as the adjoining passages, will be paved with 
 tiles made expressly in Naples. 
 
 Mrs. Alma Tadema’s new studio will be a large room 
 with an oak-beamed ceiling, ornamented with antique cor- 
 bels, an antique terra-cotta chimney-piece, and antique oak 
 panelling and doors. Four Dutch workmen have been had 
 over from Holland on purpose to fit this splendid ceiling, 
 which was designed by Alma Tadema to utilise some antique 
 carvings. Out of this will lead a smaller room, slightly up- 
 
 raised, in which will stand an old Dutch bedstead and other 
 old Dutch furniture. The windows are filled in with old 
 stained glass of quaint design and soft colouring. The 
 library will be a light room, with a large bow window. The 
 principal furniture and decoration will of course be the book- 
 cases. The dining-room will be panelled with the antique 
 panelling that formerly decorated the Dutch room in Towns- 
 hend House. A small annex attached to this room will lead 
 into the pretty garden, while at the opposite end it will give 
 admission to the atrium, from which it will be separated by a 
 fine door of mahogany on one side and cedar on the other. 
 
 It will be a remarkable feature throughout the house that 
 the woodwork used for doors, skirtings, sashes, cupboards, 
 and so forth, is in almost every case merely polished, and 
 not painted. Another feature will be the large amount of 
 fine iron work, done by Newman, that will decorate the house 
 in various places. The atrium, which will lead into the 
 master’s studio, will be decorated in the Pompeian style, 
 
 From the Abbey Road. From a Drawing by J. Elmsly Inglis. 
 
 according as the exigencies of the room will dictate, and is 
 to contain a marble fountain. A staircase will lead from this 
 apartment into the gallery of the studio. The studio itself— 
 on the floor of the house — will be a very large and lofty room, 
 with a high vaulted ceiling. At one end will be the apse, 
 whose exterior our illustration shows. This will be hung 
 with the magnificent red velvet embroidery that decorated 
 the column-room in Townshend House, and which originally 
 embellished some Venetian palace. Opposite the apse will 
 be the principal window, which runs right up into the roof 
 and fills the whole end of the room. Two smaller openings 
 will contain windows of Mexican onyx, which were once a 
 glory of the dismantled earlier house. Below these, in a 
 slightly raised portion of the room, will stand the famous 
 grand piano of oak, inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and 
 tortoiseshell, designed by George E. Fox, and which the 
 world in general was able to admire at the Musical Ex- 
 hibition of 1885 at Kensington. The ultimate decorations 
 
 of the studio are not yet decided upon. High up on the 
 house side of the studio, and approached, as we have said, 
 from the atrium, runs a gallery which will lead to a charming 
 little room overlooking the glass house from above. With 
 the exception of Miss Anna Alma Tadema’s studio, the 
 other rooms of the house will merely be those demanded 
 by domestic requirements. When finished, the house will 
 doubtless be no less beautiful than its lovely predecessor, 
 but at present, as we have shown, all is in a state of creation. 
 
 The only part of the new residence that is already finished 
 is a small studio, built last year, where Alma Tadema has 
 been working since he left his former home ; it stands at the 
 farther end of the garden, and forms, together with one other 
 apartment, a complete building in itself. This studio is 
 small, but although Alma Tadema is building another of 
 greater magnitude attached to his house, he will probably 
 make equal use of both workrooms. 
 
 A fireplace of white and coloured marble, surmounted by 
 
3 2 
 
 ALMA TADEMA, 
 
 an unusually sightly chimney, in the shape of a silvered 
 column with gilt capital and base, is one of the features of 
 the lesser studio ; also a window of onyx and transparent 
 marble, brought from Townshend House. The walls, and a 
 low arch at one end of the room, are entirely white, but the 
 loftier and greater portion of the ceiling is embellished by 
 beams and panels of polished woods, principally of pitch- 
 
 pine, which is also the material used for the flooring, book- 
 cases, and general woodwork. 
 
 The studio is on a higher level than its companion apart- 
 ment ; at the head of a short flight of steps a small landing 
 with open balustrades overlooks the lower room, the floor of 
 which is tiled and the decoration simple. One wall is fitted 
 with doors ornamented by plates of metal, on which are 
 
 .East View. From a Drawing by y. Elmsly Inglis. 
 
 etched, by Mr. Leopold Lowenstam, sketches of Alma Tade- 
 ma’s ‘Four Seasons;’ these doors slide into the wall, and 
 leave a wide opening, which communicates directly with the 
 garden, making the room perfect in summer. In the centre 
 of this opening stands a stone column which was brought 
 from Brambletye House, in Sussex, built in the seventeenth 
 century by a brother of Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 The garden itself is particularly pretty, and, for a London 
 garden, large. It was originally laid out by its former owner, 
 Tissot, many of whose decorations have been utilised in the 
 present disposition of the ground, more especially a cinque- 
 cento colonnade and trellis, which, covered with creepers, 
 forms one of the most striking features of this altogether 
 striking spot. 
 
 Helen Zimmern. 
 
 PRINTED BY H. VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD, LONDON.