LAWRENCE ALMA TADEMA, R.A.
Taken in 1883 by J. P. Mayall, this portrait of Lawrence Alma-Tadema in his studio at Townshend House appeared in the May installment of Artists at Home (1884).[1]
Casually leaning against the mantelpiece, a cigar in his left hand, his right hand in his trouser pocket, Tadema makes eye contact with the viewer. His soft, pensive, and relaxed gaze complements his informal pose. The hint of movement in his contrapposto stance, the wrinkles of his suit, make this portrait emphatically a picture of a living man, rather than an immortalized one. The artist’s pose and expression create an atmosphere of amicable familiarity, completed by the empty armchair, which invites the viewer to join this gracious host, who has courteously vacated his own seat for his visitor’s benefit. This empty chair, besides offering the viewer an invitation and underlining the open access to the artist, is a common trope in Impressionist painting meant to communicate familiarity and the ephemeral quality of a single moment; in this case, the viewer is also the photographer, who has apparently just left his seat to take a picture of the artist. Judging by the easy pose and convivial cigar, they seem to have been engaged in friendly conversation.
Despite the seeming spontaneity of the scene, the composition is carefully arranged. Tadema is in its very center, his body aligned with the vertical line of the column behind him, his head highlighted by the whiteness of this architectural element. His position next to the fireplace, the quintessential center of the Victorian domestic space, is hardly coincidental considering the theme of the publication in which the photograph appears — artists in their homes. The easel, which holds the watercolor painting An Old Story, stands parallel to the artist’s body; as the only other strong, non-architectural vertical element in the room, it seems to establish an equivalency with the artist. Furthermore, Tadema’s head is in direct proximity to a mask, some peacock feathers—a notable symbol of the Aesthetic movement—and a portrait bust of his wife. The latter is placed at the pinnacle, in the center of the mantelpiece. The position of Laura Alma-Tadema’s bust reflects her traditional role as the keeper of the household and the center of family life, notwithstanding her own identity as an artist. The way Tadema extends his left arm to his wife’s bust creates a visual union between the two.
The studio is a well-adorned room, laden with exoticism. Palm branches in the left corner, the African mask with peacock feathers, the vases of varied forms and materials, a Japanese fan, the golden cloth behind Mrs. Tadema’s bust, and the tiger skin draped over the armchair combine to yield an enticing interior. The sculpture conspicuously displayed in the upper left corner is the well-known Greek Boy with Thorn, also known as Fedelino and Spinario, which was used as a prompt in Tadema’s In the Time of Constantine (1878, William Morris Gallery). This sculpture reminds the viewer that Tadema was strongly influenced by the legacy of Classical Antiquity. Another example of Tadema’s art, aside from An Old Story, is The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, which hides behind the easel with the smaller painting.
Surrounded by his art in the fashionably exotic atmosphere of his studio, Tadema contemplates the viewer with his welcoming gaze, as though he has been waiting for us to call on him this afternoon.
Ekaterina Koposova
[1] “Tadema, Sir Lawrence Alma- (1836–1912),” by Rosemary Barrow, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford: OUP, 2004); online ed., ed. David Cannadine, May 2011, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30396 (accessed October 6, 2016).
Note:
The bronze bust of Laura Theresa (née Epps), Lady Alma-Tadema (1852-1909), the artist's second wife and former pupil, is untraced. According to Jan Marsh, it is probably the work by G. B. Amendola, executed around 1878, that was exhibited with a companion bust of Lawrence Alma-Tadema in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1879 and on its own at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880 and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 1894. National Portrait Gallery, Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue. Jeremy Maas, however, attributes the bust to the sculptor E. Onslow Ford (1852–1901). The Victorian Art World in Photographs (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1984), p. 123, fig. 234.
LM