An Apodyterium

From 1875 onwards, Alma-Tadema began to explore the theme of the Roman Bath in his work, possibly inspired by his acquisition of large portfolio of photographs of Pompeii. While depicting nude figures in classical settings was not new—Leighton and his followers had begun to shake off this taboo in Victorian painting more than a decade earlier—nudes were primarily used in idealized mythological contexts to make them more acceptable for public exhibition. As a depiction of nudity in the context of everyday Roman life, An Apodyterium represents a more daring approach by Alma-Tadema to stretch the bounds of propriety in Victorian art while still remaining appropriate for the setting and to educate the viewer about ancient social customs.
The apodyterium was the entrance and changing room for public baths during Roman times, and in taking up the subject, Alma-Tadema was able to demonstrate not only his mastery of the human form and his skill at depicting marble, but his archaeological knowledge as well. The niches depicted in the wall at right were used to store clothing and valuables while their owner was bathing (many of the famed curse tablets excavated from the spring at Bath in the UK ask for intervention by the gods over clothing and valuables stolen from the apodyterium there). The foremost figure stares frankly out at the viewer as she touches the tie of her stola and prepares to disrobe, while behind her a nude figure unlaces the ribbons which bind her sandals. In the middle ground another nude figure is followed into the next room by two balneatrices—female bath attendants—one of whom carries a tray of towels, the other carrying strigils and other metal instruments which were used to apply oil to the skin and then scrape it off, an early form of cleansing. The highly detailed and brightly painted courtyard visible through the entrance to the apodyterium at the back of the composition illustrates the depth and breadth of Alma-Tadema’s archeological understanding of the setting.
An Apodyterium received a rapturous response when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1886. It was voted the "picture of the year" by readers of the Pall Mall Gazette and the critics of the day seem to have agreed. The Art Journal described it as "painted with all the artist's unerring precision and skill" and The Times called it "Mr Alma-Tadema's little masterpiece...when we come before the Apodyterium, and contrive to forget for a moment the indifferent work that surrounds it, we feel ourselves in the presence of a man who in his own department is really great… the whole picture is composed with so much knowledge and finish, with such a unity of idea, and in so lovely a scheme of colour, that we must rank it among Mr Alma-Tadema's finest pictures of this size."
It has been suggested that the foremost figure staring out of the picture plane may have been modelled after the artist's eldest daughter Laurence, who was twenty-one at the time. However upon close examination, it seems more likely that the sitter was in fact her step-mother, Alma-Tadema's second wife, born Laura Teresa Epps, and a painter in her own right. Certainly the figure bears a striking resemblance to Alma-Tadema’s portrait of his wife from 1880, Interrupted, and also the later likeness in A Family Group of 1896. The figure in An Apodyterium has the same oval-shaped chin, rounded eyes and striking nose, as well as the red hair that was characteristic of Laura's family.