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 ALMA-TADEMA, After Sir Lawrence (1836-1912)
[The Finding of Moses]
Berlin: Berlin Photographic Company, 1905. Photogravure signed in pencil "L Alma Tadema". Neo Egyptian giltwood frame. Provenance: The Collection of Paul F. Walter.
Photogravure of one of Alma-Tadema's greatest works framed in a splendid Art Nouveau, Neo-Egyptian style frame
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was one of the great Victorian painters. He was immensely popular during his life. Revival in interest in his work and that of his Neo-Classicist and Orientalist colleagues has been a joyful discovery for lovers of intriguing works of art.
"The Finding of Moses" was painted in 1904. It gives us the story of how Moses, as a baby, was found among the papyrus reeds along the Nile by Pharoah's daughter, Bithya, who was bathing there, and subsequently raised in Pharoah's household. Alma-Tadema illustrated the tale with a handsome procession of eunuch slaves, who carry the beautiful and clearly delighted Bithya on a portable throne, and female attendants who carry Moses in his basket, as they head back to the palace. The story shows divinity at work in Moses' life as he, born to a people in slavery, through twists of fate is elevated to royal adoption and the highest echelon of worldly power. Alma-Tadema demonstrates this in the perfectly rendered details of the procession. The team of topless eunuchs that carry the throne, the slaves who alternately wave the great ostrich feather fans near the princess's head, the flowers, the marble balustrade, the thousands of miniscule, subject people across the river, and the aristocratic, languid princess herself, who takes her life of silken luxury quite for granted, are all the stage setting for the elevation of the radiant child.
Alma-Tadema's realistic renderings of faces, flesh, clothing, flowers, and marble make photogravure the ideal means of printmaking for his work, and we almost believe that the print is in fact a photograph of a neo-Egyptian opera or play. The Photographische Gesellschaft was the largest photographic publisher in Germany in the 1890's. Many of the works of the most popular painters of the era were published as photogravures.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema was born Laurens Tadema in Dronrijp in the Netherlands in 1836. He attended the Antwerp Academy and worked under a number of masters before establishing his own studio in 1862. His work consists primarily of historical or quasi-historical tableaux, and he has the Classicist's persistent concern with verisimilitude. He began in the 1850s with carefully researched Merovingian stories, then switched to Egyptian events to be more in the current of the popular imagination. His work later included ancient Greek and Roman episodes as well.
Alma-Tadema moved to England in 1870 and remained there the rest of his life. He was knighted by the Queen in 1899.
Alma-Tadema; National Gallery of Canada catalogue, Egyptomania p.488 (concerning "An Egyptian Widow")
#21764 $8,500.00  
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