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Lot Essay
Laura Alma-Tadema is now emerging from her husband’s shadow, and is being celebrated once more for her own considerable artistic talents. She was born Laura Theresa Epps, the daughter of Dr. George Napoleon Epps, a well known homeopathic practitioner. Her sister, Ellen, who was also a painter, married the pre-eminent man of letters, Edmund Gosse. Laura met her husband after he settled in London at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, and married him the following year. She thereby became step-mother to his two daughters, aged four and two, who modelled for her throughout their childhood.
Alma-Tadema taught her to paint. She became fascinated by his homeland, and imbibed the spirit of 17th century Dutch art. Indeed, Alice Meynell wrote of her, "In the gentler details of domestic life, Dutch habits, Dutch furniture, and Dutch dress of the gentler and more courtly sort of the seventeenth century, Mrs. Alma-Tadema has found unconventional, honest and … homely grace … The artist has surrounded herself by relics and remains of the time and the country she loves, and thus her pictures seem to be produced within a genuine little Holland, in a genuine seventeenth century without the blunders of ordinary historical research" (Art Journal, November 1883, pp. 345-46).
Like her husband, Laura did not date her pictures, but instead used opus numbers. This one is numbered 58 in Roman numerals. It relates closely to a picture entitled A Carol, which is numbered 61, and features a group of children singing outside a closed door, against a backdrop of Delft tiles. That picture was shown at the Royal Academy of 1896, no. 741. It is unclear how these opus numbers relate to the date. For example, The Bible Lesson was exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1883, thirteen years prior to the comparable work, A Carol, but only three opus numbers separate them.
The artist also supported the Grosvenor and New Galleries, and the Paris Salon and the Berlin Academy. Notably she was one of only two English women who contributed to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.
The picture remains one of her most touching works. A young girl in a silk dress, beautifully rendered, describes bible stories which are depicted on the blue Delft tiles that decorate her house. An older woman, possibly her grandmother, directs her. Knowledge, stories, faith and tradition are carried from one generation to the next.
Alma-Tadema taught her to paint. She became fascinated by his homeland, and imbibed the spirit of 17th century Dutch art. Indeed, Alice Meynell wrote of her, "In the gentler details of domestic life, Dutch habits, Dutch furniture, and Dutch dress of the gentler and more courtly sort of the seventeenth century, Mrs. Alma-Tadema has found unconventional, honest and … homely grace … The artist has surrounded herself by relics and remains of the time and the country she loves, and thus her pictures seem to be produced within a genuine little Holland, in a genuine seventeenth century without the blunders of ordinary historical research" (Art Journal, November 1883, pp. 345-46).
Like her husband, Laura did not date her pictures, but instead used opus numbers. This one is numbered 58 in Roman numerals. It relates closely to a picture entitled A Carol, which is numbered 61, and features a group of children singing outside a closed door, against a backdrop of Delft tiles. That picture was shown at the Royal Academy of 1896, no. 741. It is unclear how these opus numbers relate to the date. For example, The Bible Lesson was exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters in 1883, thirteen years prior to the comparable work, A Carol, but only three opus numbers separate them.
The artist also supported the Grosvenor and New Galleries, and the Paris Salon and the Berlin Academy. Notably she was one of only two English women who contributed to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.
The picture remains one of her most touching works. A young girl in a silk dress, beautifully rendered, describes bible stories which are depicted on the blue Delft tiles that decorate her house. An older woman, possibly her grandmother, directs her. Knowledge, stories, faith and tradition are carried from one generation to the next.