The National Gallery in London has announced the acquisition of a significant Victorian painting by the renowned Dutch-born artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, coinciding with the institution’s 200th anniversary. The gallery has secured Alma-Tadema’s 1879 work, After the Audience, for £2 million through a transaction facilitated by Christie’s. The painting, depicting Emperor Augustus’s son-in-law, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, ascending the staircase of his villa after meeting his admirers, was purchased from noted Pre-Raphaelite collector Isabel Goldsmith. The acquisition was funded by four individual donors.
The National Gallery’s statement emphasized that this acquisition represents key artistic movements in Western art history, namely Neoclassicism and Aestheticism, which have been underrepresented in its collection.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, born in 1836 in the Netherlands, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp under the tutelage of history painter Gustave Wappers. He also assisted artist Louis Jan de Taeye, who emphasized historical accuracy and the portrayal of scenes from the Ancient World. Alma-Tadema’s works often feature idealized representations of ancient Rome, influenced by both his education and his memorable Italian honeymoon in 1863.
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