Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A.

Ernest Gambart (commissioned from the artist in 1869)
John Paton; Stirling (and sold, Christie's, London, July 14, 1906, lot 78, as In the Garden)
Permain, London (acquired at the above sale and sold, 1906)
W.C. Robinson (acquired from the above and sold, Frederick Muller & Co., Amsterdam, November 13, 1906, lot 4, illustrated as En fleurs jardin
Sale: Mak, Amsterdam, June 13, 1961, lot 141
A. Staal, Amsterdam (acquired at the above sale and sold, Christie's, London, October 16, 1981, lot 100, illustrated)
Sale: Christie's, New York, October 27, 1982, lot 296, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale

The French Gallery, (date unknown), no. 9116 (according to a label on the reverse)
Leewarden, Het Princessehof, 1974, no. 14 (submitted but not exhibited)

Carl Vosmaer, Catalogue Raisonné of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Leiden, circa 1885, no. 90
Rudolf Dircks, The Later Works of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A., The Art Journal, Christmas Issue, 1910, p. 27
M. Viola, Laurens Alma-Tadema, van Onzen Tijd, Jaargang XII, no. 39, 1912, p. 625, illustrated
Vern G. Swanson, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, the painter of the Victorian vision of the ancient world,  London, 1977, p. 136
Vern G. Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London, 1990, p. 154, no. 115, illustrated p. 325, no. 115(ii) (and in color p. 450 with incorrect catalogue number)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting on wooden panel has been quite recently restored. The panel is flat and unreinforced on the reverse. There are no cracks or areas of instability to the paint layer. The condition is clearly very good throughout almost all of the painting. There is an area in the upper right in the fresco on the wall behind the figure that is slightly uneven, which seems to portray a slightly worn element to the fresco itself. This seems to be an intentional ploy of the artist, which would explain the rather experimental technique in this area. There are very fine and modest retouches that have been applied in one or two areas here, mostnotably by the vertical dark line in front of the horse. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In 1863, Alma-Tadema and his first wife Pauline left Antwerp for an Italian honeymoon; visits to Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii would motivate a turn from the artist’s Merovingian (European medieval) subjects of the early 1860s to compositions like A Greek Woman, inspired by Antique culture and its art and artifact. That same year, Alma-Tadema drew the attention of Ernest Gambart, the powerful, London-based Belgian art dealer with representation throughout Europe. The relationship became so profitable—both financially and artistically—that Gambart and Alma-Tadema agreed to a commission of over seventy paintings, including A Greek Woman  (R. J. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London, 2001, pp. 21-22; 41).  

As suggested by the present work’s inscription, Bruxelles, Alma-Tadema completed the present work in the city he made his home after 1865 and where he completed the first of a series of pictures of ancient Roman life. A prevalent theme in these compositions was the luxurious, sensory pursuits of the Ancients —such as a lovely Greek woman taking a stroll in the garden.

While the vibrant red of the garden wall here is similar to the Pompeian interiors of Alma-Tadema’s work of the late 1860s, the fresco is an accurate recreation of a wall painting of cavalrymen and foot soldiers from Nola (near Naples) dating from 330-320 BC, though it remains unclear exactly when and how the artist first saw it (fig. 1). The tomb painting had been discovered in the mid-eighteenth century, and was first on public view by 1768 in the Borbon collections at the Real Museo di Capodimonte, Naples and then, by the artist’s first Italian trip, at the city’s Museo Archeologico Nazionale (inv. 9362-9364, 9351; see: Rita Benassai, La pittura dei Campani e dei Sanniti, Rome, 2000, p. 201, fig 213, cat no. N8).  If Alma-Tadema did not see the paintings first-hand, he very likely knew them from reproductions; the artist held a collection of over 5,000 photographs of archeological ruins and artifacts held in European museums, as well as a comprehensive library of classical texts and volumes of archaeology (Barrow, p. 30; Ulrich Pohlmann, “Alma-Tadema and photography,” Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, eds. Edwin Becker, et. al, ext cat., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 114).  Moreover, Alma-Tadema also recorded the wall painting in a watercolor (included in Portfolio 80 of the artist’s archives held by the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham). 

While today the wall painting reproduced in the present work is understood to be from Nola, Alma-Tadema believed it to come from Poseidonia, a major nearby Greek colony founded in the 7th century BC, on the Tyrrhenian coast. Poseidonia became the Roman colony of Paestum in 273 BC and, while abandoned by late antiquity, several of its ancient temples and many of its tomb and wall-paintings survived.  Alma-Tadema’s knowledge of Paestum is also suggested by the present work’s cultivated rose garden.  By 29 BC, Virgil referenced the beauty of Paestum and its “twice-blooming” roses, which were sent north to Rome so the citizens could enjoy blooms all winter.  The flowers also likely provided the present work’s alternative name, En fleurs jardin, used when it auctioned at Frederick Muller, Amsterdam in November 1906 (the painting’s title today is also appropriate, given the Paestum's Greek origins). When illustrated in the same sale’s catalogue, the present work is shown with a bare wall, the rose garden serving as the primary decorative motif.  As Dr. Vern G. Swanson explains in his catalogue raisonné, while it is possible A Greek Woman may have been reworked after 1906, the complexity of the fresco design makes it more likely the panel had been photographed in an early state before it was completed (Swanson, 1990, p. 154).  A new theory considers the possibility that Alma-Tadema painted over the original fresco before 1906, the white wall later removed to uncover the original design.