Painting often runs in the family, as so well illustrated in the Brueghels of Flanders and Brabant. This weekend I look at an artistic family you’re unlikely to have heard of, the Alma-Tademas of London, husband Lawrence, wife Laura, and daughter Anna.

Born as Lourens Alma Tadema in Dronrijp, in the north of the Netherlands, Lawrence (1836–1912) was left to draw and paint following crises in his physical and mental health when he was only 15. By the following year his skills were sufficient for him to enter the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, where he spent four years. During the later years of that training he worked as a studio assistant to one of the professors at the academy, and became fascinated by Merovingian history.

In 1858-9 he moved to work for Baron Jan August Hendrik Leys, who also acted as his mentor. Leys was an avid painter of mediaeval scenes, who was also a major influence on the early work of the French painter James Tissot.

The Education of the Children of Clovis (also known as The School of Vengeance, or The Training of Clotilde’s Sons) (1861) returns to tales from Merovingian history, showing Saint Clotilde watching her young sons being taught the royal art of axe-throwing. It’s no wonder that later one of them was to murder two of her grandchildren.

In 1862, Alma-Tadema set up his own studio, and the following year he married, honeymooning in Florence, Rome, Naples, and in the excavated ruins of nearby Pompeii.

The year 1869 was a disaster for the Alma-Tadema family. Although Lawrence’s career as a painter had been starting to flourish, his wife Pauline had not been well for a long time, and died suddenly of smallpox. His own health had faltered, but his doctors in Brussels couldn’t agree on a diagnosis. This left him with one option: to go to London to get a second opinion, which he did in December. Once there he was quickly invited to Ford Madox Brown’s house, where he met the two younger Epps girls, then aged nineteen and seventeen.

The oldest of them, Emily (c 1842-1912), was taught by the leading Pre-Raphaelite landscape painter John Brett, and married to become Mrs Emily Williams. The middle daughter, Ellen (1850-1929), was taught by Ford Madox Brown, and married the poet Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849-1928). After their husbands died, Emily and Ellen shared a studio, but neither really achieved fame in their painting.

It was the youngest daughter, born Laura Theresa Epps (1852–1909), with whom Lawrence fell in love at first sight, although he was nearly thirty-four himself. He returned to his family in Brussels, still infatuated with young Laura. Then in July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and the whole Alma-Tadema family – Lawrence, his two young daughters, and his sister Atje, who acted as housekeeper – fled to London, where he settled in the September, marrying Laura in July of the following year.

At the age of only nineteen Laura found herself an artist’s wife, step-mother to Laurense and Anna (then seven and four years old), and trying to start her own career as a painter. He quickly became friends with the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and his palette brightened. He enjoyed rapid commercial success, and in 1873 Queen Victoria made him an official ‘Denizen’, giving him most of the rights of citizenship.

This is his portrait of The Artist’s Wife when they married.

The Vintage Festival (1871) is one of two similar versions of the same scene, painted using the much brighter and lighter palette that Lawrence developed as he settled in England. It marks the start of his mature style, using classical Greek and Roman themes depicted in intricate detail. These details were researched extensively, sometimes taking as long as two years for a single painting. Following early criticism of his initial attempts to depict the surface properties of marble, he devoted a great deal of effort to painting marble better than any previous artist, so becoming the master of marble.

The meticulous detail in his paintings often gives the impression that these are large canvases and panels, although many are quite small. He was obsessive with what he saw as accuracy, and repeatedly repainted passages until he felt they were perfect.

This painting shows his vision of a Bacchanal being celebrated by musical Bacchantes in a private villa. Its tame nature may surprise those accustomed to thinking of such festivals as rampage, but gives scope for fine details such as the leather straps on the faces of those playing wind instruments. It also has a strong sense of Aestheticism, with its evocation of sound and music, as well as the heady aromas from burning incense.

Despite her new and demanding roles, Laura was quick to achieve recognition in her painting. Her first work to be exhibited at the Salon in Paris was in 1873, and that same year she started exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. I don’t know if her early painting The Tea Party (date not known, Opus 7) was one of those, but I believe it shows her step-daughter Laurense playing with her dolls.

Lawrence was also a skilled painter of portraits; his most touching, though, must be This is Our Corner (1873), a double portrait of his daughters Anna (1864-1940) in front, and Laurense (1865-1940) behind. They both remained unmarried through adult life: Anna became an accomplished artist, and Laurense a prolific novelist and poet.

Sunny Days (1874) may come as a surprise to those who know Lawrence for his Salon-style works, but during the 1870s he started painting small landscapes, typically of his family when they were on holiday. This shows his daughter Anna in what could be seen as the closest that he came to Impressionism, and was perhaps modelled after one of Monet’s paintings of the time. On this occasion, the landscape is only in Surrey, but he also painted these when in mainland Europe.

Laura’s World of Dreams from 1876 introduces a theme that she was to develop in her mature works: the reflection and transmission of images in mirrors and windows, adding depth to what would otherwise be a shallow view. Here a nurse/nanny (or possibly mother) has fallen asleep, exhausted, on a large illustrated family Bible, which is open at the start of the book of Amos.

Laura was one of only two British women artists to have work accepted for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.

A Looking out o’Window, Sunshine (?1881, Opus 81) is by far the most outstanding of Laura’s paintings that I have found, with its captivating portrayal of childhood, radiant lightness, and its play of reflections on the glass of the window. It’s also composed to reverse the normal balance in brightness between indoors and out: in reality, of course, outdoor light levels would have been much greater than those indoors, but Laura has managed to ‘cheat’ that by her choice of light colours in the interior wood, clothing, and chair.

Reference

Barrow RJ (2001) Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Phaidon Press. ISBN 978 0 7148 4358 2.