Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A. 1836-1912

Commissioned by M. Knoedler & Co, New York in 1902, until 1903;
Judge Samuel L. Bronson, New York and New Haven;
American Art Galleries, until 1907;
Meyer H. Lehman, until 1911;
M. Knoedler, New York, until 1917;
Joseph A. Skinner, Holyoke, Massachusetts;
Sotheby’s, New York, 29 October 1981, lot 88

Vern G. Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1990, p.265 cat. no.405, repr. p.472

Although Alma-Tadema set his paintings in a Grecian world of marble and mosaic, his pictures are not a dry archaeological recreation of the ancient past. He inhabited his paintings with men and women who breathe warmth into the finely detailed backgrounds of palaces by the sea, terraced gardens and the cool interiors of thermae and villas. Among the Ruins shows an elegant blonde maiden, who whilst beach-combing on deserted sands has discovered the overgrown ruins of a forgotten temple. She is surrounded by the fallen columns and broken pediments decorated with battling Amazons, suggestive of a violet past but now, in these more peaceful times the commanders of the battalions of many-oared war-ships have ceased to visit the temple of the sea-god Poseidon. The flowers have pushed their way through its floors and ocean storms and earthquakes have tumbled its walls. It is now the haunt of the sea birds that make their nests among its stones. The girl stoops amid the irises to draw back their stems, revealing the tranquil face of a bronze votive statue of a male god. Her string of polished amethyst beads and gold and silver bracelets suggest that she is no mere flower seller or temple servant and that she is a young member of the patrician classes who built beautiful villas along the coast of the Mediterranean.

Tadema loved to paint Grecian women against backgrounds of flowers and ocean, marble and azure sky and from the mid 1890s to the mid 1900s he painted several of his most accomplished pictures in this mode, including Her Eyes are with her Thoughts and they are Far Away (sold in these rooms, 21 June 1988, lot 29) of 1897, Under the Roof of Blue Ionian Weather (sold in these rooms, 18 June 1985, lot 59) of 1901, The Year's at the Spring, all's Right with the World of 1902 (sold Sotheby's New York, 28 October 1982, lot 82), the present work painted in the same year and Silver Favourites (Manchester City Art Gallery) of the following year. The tone of the band of deep blue-ocean in each of these pictures is testament to Alma-Tadema's great skill as a colourist and the subtle tones of the pale dress, ivory skin and the delicate purple of amethysts and irises, in Among the Ruins, is highly decorative.

In 1900 and 1901 Alma-Tadema was involved in a major production of Coriolanus which Sir Henry Irving staged for the first time on the 15th April 1901. It was to be Irving's last Shakespearian production, and commercially his greatest, lasting for thirty-four nights. Alma-Tadema designed the ten sets used for the play and all of the costumes (with the assistance of Ellen Terry's costumiers Mr Karl and Mrs Nettleship). The Era Magazine described the effect 'It is with a sense of absolute faith that we lean upon the antiquarian lore of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. A Visit to Coriolanus... is a liberal education in the attire, the furniture, the weapons and the architecture of Rome five hundred years ago.' (Era Magazine, 20 April 1901) Although the acting of its principal actors, Irving and Terry was not critically acclaimed, Alma-Tadema's designs were a sensation and led to a fashion for togas among the upper classes. American women particularly loved the graeco-roman tunics that Liberty's began to sell and were advertised in the fashion magazines of the period. The dress worn by the woman in Among the Ruins is the sort of design which began fashionable at the smart champagne parties of London and New York in the early twentieth century.

Shortly after completing Among the Ruins Alma-Tadema visited Egypt with Sir John Aird, the engineer responsible for the building of the Aswan and Assiut dams. Aird invited Alma-Tadema and his family to attend the dams' dedication party and to embark on a six-week expedition on the Nile. Aird was keen to purchase a painting of an Egyptian subject from Alma-Tadema and it was on this trip that The Finding of Moses (sold Christie's, New York, 25 May 1995, lot 87) was conceived, although it was not completed until 1904. Although the subjects of Among the Ruins and The Finding of Moses were very different, both pictures are painted in a palette of deep blue and purple, the former of sea and irises and the latter of delphiniums, ripe figs and the waters of the Nile.

In a letter dated 8^th February 1909 to Meyer H. Lehman, Tadema wrote of Amongst the Ruins ‘I may as well say that I consider it one of my successful works’. Of his work in the first decade of the twentieth century Percy Cross Standing wrote 'we seem to feel, even through the medium of his pictures, his kind-heartedness, his quick appreciation of all that is good and beautiful, his dislike of mystery, of vain searchings in dark mental places, his love of sunshine, moral and real (Percy Cross Standing, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema O.M., R.A., 1907, p.108)