L. ALMA-TADEMA, R.A.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema leans against the mantelpiece in his studio, his contrapposto suggesting movement and informality. In his left hand is a cigar, his right hand he has casually tucked into his trouser pocket. To his right is an empty chair with a tiger fur, to his left, on the mantelpiece, is a portrait bust. To the right of the mantelpiece hangs a luxurious fan. An African mask with peacock feathers is suspended above the artist. On the cornice are placed a sculpture and vases. In the space between the cornice and the mantelpiece hangs a golden cloth. In the background on the left, palm branches, an easel with a finished painting, and another painting behind it catch our eye, before our gaze wonders to the dark liminal space of the entrance into the studio. 

“Art in September.” The Magazine of Art 7 (September 1884): xlviii. "Mr. Mayall’s photographs—or rather, the photo-engravings on copper plates reproduced therefrom—are singularly lifeless and dull. Everybody looks as though he were sitting for his portrait; the very furniture is posing; and over all is that terrible and tremendous presence, the photographer’s light, “the light that never was on sea or land.” Mr. Calderon affronts the camera with much sternness; Sir John Gilbert has the sun in his eyes, and comes out very white and vague; Mr. Boehm, sitting desultorily among busts and statues, seems to have been caught in the act of reading the paper; while Mr. Alma Tadema, as unlike himself as possible, leans boldly and airily on the chimney-piece, and Mr. Frank Dicksee, austere yet frightened, does even as Mr. Alma Tadema, and Mr. Val Prinsep turns from his picture with a frown, as if he felt inclined to wring the photographer’s neck."

Jeremy Maas, The Victorian Art World in Photographs (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1984), p. 123, fig. 234, p. 123.