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LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
Lorenz Alma Tadema
HIS LIFE AND WORKS
BY
GEO Rg ' f 13 ERS
Author of "Uarda," etc.
From the German by MARY J. SAFFORD
WITH THIRTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
I I MURRAY STREET
1886
Entered according to Act of
by William S.
in the Office of the Librarian
Congress, in the year 1886
GOTTSBERGER
of Congress, at Washington
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA, (FRONTISPIECE).
FREDEGUNDE AT THE DEATH-BED OF BISHOP PRAETEX-
TATUS, - l8
TRAINING OF CHLOTILDIS' SONS, - - - - -22
GROUP OF CHESS PLAYERS, - 39
HOPE JUMPER (A CRAYON SKETCH), - - - - 42
DANCING GIRL (A CRAYON SKETCH), - - - - 44
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA'S STUDIO, - 54
SCULPTURE GALLERY IN ANCIENT ROME, - - - 68
PICTURE GALLERY IN ANCIENT ROME, - - - - 70
AN AUDIENCE AT AGRIPPA'S, - 72
HIDE AND SEEK, 76
THE "BALNEATRIX," 77
MISS ANNE TADEMA, - go

LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The charm of the author's twofold vocation of sci-
entist and poet lies in his being at liberty to devote
himself exclusively to congenial occupations; and what
could be pleasanter than to trace the life and labor of
a man who is very near one's heart, whose works afford
nothing but satisfaction and enjoyment, and of whose
method of production and sphere of activity he may
venture to say — the author as an artist modestly re-
tires behind Tadema — often and strikingly coincide
with his own.
Yet it has required much urging from the publisher
of these pages to induce me to write a biography of my
friend. He is an artist and, as the writer is only a lover
2
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
of art, not a professional art-critic, he could not at first
refrain from declining a task for which his capacity and
critical training in a field at present occupied by science
did not seem equal. But the deeper his sympathy with
the man whose life and creations were to be delineated,
the more tempting the commission appeared and, after
reflecting upon the manner of executing it and entering
into the master's development and works, he thought
that he who knew him so well as a man also under-
stood him as an artist, and would probably be able
to give a faithful picture of his life. True, this must
from the outset decline to be judged as an art-criticism,
and its author will be content and grateful if his por-
trayal is successful in presenting to other lovers of art
an accurate picture, in clear and lifelike form, of one of
the greatest and most peculiar artists of our times.
Another and more professional hand, Vosmaer, the
Dutch author and art-critic, has undertaken in his art-
romance, "The Amazon"*—a work far too little
known in Germany — to give us a portrait of Tadema,
* English Translation published by Wm. S. Gottsberger, N. Y.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
3
whose personality as man and artist he attempted to
copy line by line in the artist Aisma; but the poet has
profited by the license allowed him to add much of
his own material to the picture, and, moreover, occu-
pied himself more with the finished master than with
the process of his development. In the latter field, Vos-
maer has diverged most widely from the true course of
events; but it seems particularly attractive to me to fol-
low the master's work, not as a poet, but a historian,
and show the finished artist to the readers of these
pages, not in the light of imagination, but precisely as
he is in reality.
The Tadema family (not Tadema) is, as the name —
which sounds like Habbema, Wibisma, Eisinga, etc —
indicates, an old Frieseland one. Our Tadema's father
was a notary in the beautiful and wealthy village of
Dronrijp in Leeuwarden, his mother's name was Brou-
wer. At his baptism the boy — born January 8th,
1836 — who was to be so great an honor to his native
place, was christened Lorenz. Alma is a fancy
name, adopted by himself when a young artist, partly
on account of its euphonious sound, partly because he
4
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
was vexed — owing to the fact that the initial letter T
of his name was so far down in the alphabet—that
his pictures were always entered on one of the last
pages of the catalogues of the exhibitions.
Every one knows how level and destitute of any
elevation are most of the provinces of Holland; but
this cannot be asserted of the soil of our friend's home,
which is rich in undulating, rounded hills. Carefully
tilled grain-fields lie between luxuriant meadows, on
which graze motley herds of cattle; light and shadow
alternate harmoniously in these fruitful fields, so rich in
every hue, and the houses of Dronrijp are picturesquely
grouped around the lofty site of the church. At sunset
the lush grass glitters, the ripe grain shimmers like
sparkling gold, and in the background of this picture
the church towers above the gently-rising fertile hills
and the neat houses of the peasantry, as if an artist had
chosen its location.
Here Tadema received the first impressions of
childhood, here perhaps the bright colors and brilliant
light, afterwards so exquisitely portrayed by his art,
were stamped upon his soul. In this region, too, the
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
5
only antiquities found in Holland (coins and ornaments
of the Merovingian period) were discovered, and seem-
ing trifles often give the artist's soul the impulse to
the grandest achievements. Was he, afterwards the
artist of the Merovingian dynasty, directed towards
that great and bloody epoch of French history by
some of these things, a word heard, or picture seen
when a child?
His father died young, but his noble mother under-
stood how to train the vivacious boy with tenderness
and discretion. Like many sons whose education is
directed by a widowed mother, his mind and imagina-
tion developed with special harmony and vigor.
His father had desired that his son, like himself,
should enter the legal profession, and he was therefore
sent to the gymnasium of Leeuwarden, where the
family had removed, and which is only a few leagues
from Dronrijp. Here, too, there was no lack of en-
couragement to artistic taste and the enjoyment of
antiquities; for in the pretty capital of Frieseland the
stately, beautiful, venerable town-hall recalls the flower-
ing of art in past centuries, and a museum of Frieseland
6
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
antiquities directs attention to the former period of the
bold and noble Frieseland race, whose law claims:
"The Frieselanders must be free so long as the winds
blow from the clouds and the world stands." They
have remained " a nation of free men," and have also
outwardly retained their ancient customs and costumes
longer and more firmly than any other race of Lower
Saxony. At the present day Leeuwarden is still re-
nowned for the beauty of its women, and in Tadema's
boyhood many of them yet wore the superb, picturesque
costume of their "nation." How splendid is the broad
gold frontlet ending at the temples in rosettes or oval
gold plates, in which diamonds often glitter; what a
stately appearance the cap and veil of costly lace gave
and still lends the more conservative women; how ad-
mirably the ear-rings, flashing with gems of great value,
which descended as a family heirloom from mother to
daughter, suited a beautiful face. This brilliant cos-
tume, so striking a contrast to our plain garb, which
rigidly excludes everything unique and magnificent,
could not fail to please the young artist and incite him
to seek the ages when everybody wore gold ornaments
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
7
and gay garments. And Tadema's boyish eyes had
acquired betimes the artistic intuition, his talent had
shown itself in early childhood. It was first noticed —
so he told me himself—when he was scarcely five
years old. Merely for the sake of occupation, he had
shared the drawing lessons given to his older brothers,
and while the teacher was sketching for him a block
used as a model, lie had seized his hand and showed
him that a certain line ought not to run as it did, but
the opposite way. Soon his genius attracted attention
by other little independent productions; but though his
mother placed no obstacles in the way of the early
choice of his profession, she insisted that he must first
complete his course of study at the gymnasium, and
the studious lad, who as soon as he understood the
classics took pleasure in the ancient languages, wil-
lingly yielded. Here he obtained access to those
sources from which he was to draw the best and most
precious material for his later works; here, for the first
time, he was brought in contact with the life of the
Greeks and Romans, which, as a finished artist in
Italy, he made peculiarly his own.
8
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
His eager mind, his remarkable linguistic talent, and
the industry peculiar to him, carried him through his
classes at school so rapidly, that in 1853 he could be
sent to the academy in Antwerp. He left his sister's
portrait, his first independent production, with his
family, and diligently labored under De Keyser and
Wappers in the Belgian art-capital to perfect himself as
an artist.
He was a merry young fellow, universally popular,
fond of all the pleasures of the gay artist-world to
which he belonged, yet full of earnest devotion to
study. The lively youth took the cares of life very
lightly, but had a serious view of art, and it was long
before he attained any degree of self-confidence.
Great as were his talent and industry he could estab-
lish a very severe standard for himself, and at first
none of his productions seemed to him worthy of
being exhibited or offered for sale.
In the French-speaking portion of Belgium, among
masters and companions, the majority of whom looked
to France for their best inspirations, the German blood
of his race strongly asserted itself. The coloring of
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
9
this artist was at first Dutch, the subject chosen for
his first picture was German, and Tadema, though a
native of Frieseland, who developed into a master in
Belgium and France and finally settled in London as
a naturalized Englishman, nevertheless aroused more
sympathy in Germany than any other foreign artist and
by means of his creations so identified himself with
the lovers of art, that we to a certain extent number
him among ourselves. This phenomenon is no acci-
dental one, but may be explained by the German
basis of his character, the German truthfulness, sim-
plicity, and extreme thoroughness, which distinguish
everything he creates. Nothing can better confirm
this statement than the fact that "Faust and Gret-
chen" was the subject of the first large picture he
painted in the Belgian art-school.* He finished this
aquarelle in 1857 and presented it to the host of the
cercle artistique to which he belonged. He treated his
second work, whose subject was an incident in the
history of his native land: "The Destruction of Ter-
* Engravings or photographs of all Alma Tadema's pictures may-
be obtained at L. H. Lefevre's, London, King Street, St. James
Square.
IO
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
doest Abbey," with equal disrespect by giving it to his
mother's cook to put somewhere in the dining-room.
So long as his creations did not correspond Avith
the ideal that hovered before him, they seemed value-
less; but he felt that this ideal was attainable and fail -
ure did not discourage, only stimulated him to im-
provement. Besides, success soon came and when, in
1859, his mother accepted his invitation and with his
sister joined him in Antwerp, he threw himself into his
work with redoubled zest under the eyes of this be-
loved, admirable woman, and found the right teacher in
the person of one of the noblest and most lovable
artists of our century. Tadema, if any artist, may be
cited as an example that a talented young painter de-
rives infinitely greater benefit from the instruction of a
capable master, than from the course of lectures at the
Academy—no matter what name it bears. How
many of our leading sculptors and painters I have
heard enthusiastically support this opinion!
The "Plundering of Egmond Abbey," completed
in 1859, Tadema valued very little, like many others,
and therefore threw it aside, but he now succeeded
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
in being received as a pupil by Van Leys, who at that
time had deviated widely from the French romantic
school he had joined in his youth, and regained the
simplicity and directness natural to him. Leys had
reached this turn in Germany, and thither he was
often attracted during the years of Tadema's pupil-
age. Though this master's genius did not enable him
to treat great historical subjects with powerful effect,,
he was nevertheless a thorough artist and a keen ob-
server. The critic perceives in his "Walk outside of
the City " and his "Mass," a more healthful realism, and
a more successful and loving devotion to actual life
than in any other paintings of that period; the portraits
by him, too, which I have seen, are distinguished by
great truthfulness and a realism which seems ready to
sacrifice beauty to accuracy. Besides, his pictures
cannot be denied a brilliancy of coloring he owed to
his Parisian masters. He usually chose subjects from
the life of the people and the history of his native land,
and these are employed even for the frescoes in the
great guildhall of Antwerp, which he did not live to-
complete.
12
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
In this artist Tad em a found the right master. No
one can deny that the works of Van Leys possess rare
directness and Tadema, who has one of the most
straightforward natures I ever met, brought him a high
degree of this very quality. If the Belgian master's
personality can be deduced from his works, he must
have had an extremely amiable, truthful, and spite of
all his simplicity, a vigorous and independent artist
nature; if the tree may be judged by the fruit, he was
also an admirable teacher, and Tadema himself says
that Van Leys' instruction made an era in his whole
development. Yet he was far from subjecting himself
absolutely to his master's mannerism. From the be-
ginning he remained faithful to himself, and with perfect
justice could say in after years to the well-informed
art-critic, Zimmern: "If I have obtained any degree
of success, it is because I have always been faithful
to my own ideas, followed the inspirations of my own
brain, and imitated no other artist. Whoever wishes
to accomplish anything in any career in life must first
of all be faithful to his own nature, and this, I may
assure you, I always have been."
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
13
While his skill rapidly increased under the eyes of
his teacher, Leys, his attention was turned towards a
period of European history which, though as a whole
monstrous and detestable, is in detail extremely rich in
artistic material.
Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks had fallen
into his hands and made him familiar with the royal
family of the Merovingian dynasty, at whose head
stood men of powerful frame clad in golden armor,
beautiful, yet terrible women, with floating hair or glit-
tering diadems, attired in brilliant robes and flashing
jewels. Merovingian antiquities had been found near
his native village, it was not difficult for the well-
educated young artist to read the simple I^atin of the
Bishop of Tours, and it has afforded me special
pleasure to trace the manner in which he has used
Gregory's narrative and how, even at that time, he
strove, with the scientific sense and painstaking faithful-
ness of the scholar, to search out and profit by every
trace that could be obtained of the costumes, weapons,
household utensils, and ornaments of the Merovingian
period.
14
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The historical work just mentioned is really a
treasure-house of art material, and when Vosmaer ask-
ing his light-hearted friend, to whom everything gloomy
and monstrous seemed utterly alien, how he had hap-
pened to choose the Merovingians, received the gay
answer: "They are a 'sorry lot/ to be sure, still
they are picturesque and interesting." Tadema was
perfectly right, and the work of their historian, to those
imaginative persons who can conjure before their
mental vision all the strange and horrible deeds perpe-
trated by these men and women, becomes as bewitch-
ing and absorbing as a thrilling and tragic epic poem.
Though Gregory of Tours lacks the critical circumspec-
tion we demand from our modern historians, he is
nevertheless a first-class narrator, whose vivid manner
of recital gains a special charm from his speaking in be-
half of his heroes and — in a way far too personal for
a historian — taking sides with them as suits his own
fancy, and showing the reward for virtue and punish-
ment for crime during the earthly life of the individual.
Shortly before obtaining Van Leys for a master,
Tadema had directed his attention to the time of the
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
IS
Migration of the Nations. A pencil study made in the
year 1859 for the water-color of Attila's death is in
Vosmaer's possession, and the picture of "Chlotildis #
at the Grave of her Grandchildren" belongs to the
same period.
This picture distinctly shows how he used his
source of inspiration. A thrilling scene took posses-
sion of his soul, and he expanded it, freed it from what
he had read, and gave artistic expression to the con-
ception which, in mentally recasting the fact, had most
deeply impressed him. Gregory of Tours makes no
mention of the queen mourning at the grave, but tells
the following story: "The first great Chlodwig had by
Chlotildis, the daughter of the Burgundian king, three
sons: Chlodomer, Childebert, and Chlotar. The
oldest was slain in a battle with the Burgundians, but
his mother, Chlotildis, received his sons in Paris,
where she reared them with special love and care.
Her second son, Childebert, became jealous of his
nephews and fearing that, through his mother's affec-
* Gregory of Tours writes the name differently; Chrodichildis
and Chlothieldis.
16 LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
tion, they might obtain the throne, he secretly sent
messengers to his brother Chlotar, and summoned him
to Paris, where they determined to murder the lads.
To get possession of the children, they induced their
mother to place them in their charge on the pretext of
raising them to the throne. This plan pleased Chlo-
tildis because her grandsons were the children of her
oldest son. As soon as the boys were in their uncles'
power, Chlotar seized the eldest by the arm, hurled him
on the ground, thrust a knife into his shoulder and
cruelly murdered him. At the loud shrieks of the dying
prince, the other boy threw himself at Childebert's feet,
clasped his knees and cried, amid his tears: 'Protect
me, dear uncle, that I may not die like my brother V
Childebert, with tears streaming down his face, ex-
claimed: 1 Give me this child's life, I beg you, my
dear brother; I will guarantee what you desire, only
don't kill him.' But the other, loading him with
abuse, answered: 1 Push him off or die in his stead!
You planned this affair yourself,' he added, 1 will you
prove recreant so soon?' When Childebert heard
this, he thrust the boy away and threw him into his
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
17
brother's hands. Chiotar grasped him, plunged the
knife into his side and killed him as he had murdered
the elder brother. Then they also killed the chil-
dren's servants and tutors .... The queen placed the
bodies of the two princes on the same bier and, amid
chants and unutterable grief, followed them herself to
St. Peter's Church and there buried them together.
One was ten, the other severi years old."
Tadema selected no passage of this striking narra-
tive for representation, but his artist'eye looked beyond
what Gregory related and beheld the image of the
grandmother as she lingered, mourning, beside the
grave of her darlings, for whom she had cherished
hopes so grand and beautiful, thinking of them with
grieving love.
On the other hand our friend often closely adhered
to the event described by his historian; for instance, in
his picture of " Fredegunde at the death-bed of Bishop
Praetextatus/' which was completed three years after
he became Van Leys' pupil. All Tadema's great
qualities appear in this superb painting: thorough
comprehension of the subject to be treated, har-
18 LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
monious composition, in which every figure has its
just value, pervaded by what might be termed a classic
repose that serves in the happiest manner as a foil to
the passionate emotion of the principal character, the
most loving choice and elaboration of detail, an un-
derlying mood which powerfully moves the spectator's
soul, and a fidelity in the representation of architecture
and costume, that rejects everything the connoisseur
might exclude as not belonging to the period of the
event depicted.
Gregory of Tours gives the following account of
the incident represented in the picture just mentioned :.
"At the instigation of Fredegunde, Praetextatus, Bishop
of Rouen, was insidiously attacked on Easter Sunday,
while commencing the alternating chants, and severely
wounded under the shoulder by the assassin's sword.
The prelate was instantly borne to his chamber by
his attendants and laid upon his bed, and soon after
Fredegunde appeared with the Dukes Beppolen and
Ausovald. She feigned indignation at what had oc-
curred and an ardent desire to discover the perpetrator
and severely punish his crime. The bishop, who per-

FREDEGUNDE AT THE DEATH-BED OF BISHOP PRAETEXTATUS.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
19
ceived her treachery, replied: i Who did it? The
same person who murdered our kings, who has so
often shed innocent blood and has committed so many
crimes in this realm.' Then Fredegunde said: 'I
have very skilful physicians who will cure your wound.
Permit them to visit you/ — ' It is God's will to sum-
mon me from this world now/ he answered; 'but you,
from whom all these crimes emanated, will be accursed
throughout eternity, and God will avenge my blood
upon your head.' Then she went away, but the bishop
set his affairs in order and expired."
Here the picture follows Gregory's narrative line
by line. Praetextatus has raised himself to a sitting
posture on the couch and, beneath the shoulder of the
arm rigidly extended in malediction, is seen the
wound, whose bandage has been loosed by the violent
gesture. The victim's countenance is not the face of a
gentle pastor; it seems as if Tadema had known that
he — as criticism has since proved — had not been
exiled without guilt. There is great energy in the
countenance and hand of the prelate uttering the
curse. The calmness of the queen, who sits beside
20
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
the deathbed, forms a singular, nay, startling contrast
to this violent emotion. She is beautiful, very beautiful;
we can understand that for her sake the rich but hap-
less Princess Galsvintha could be abandoned and
murdered by her husband, Chilperich. The faint, sar-
castic smile, with which she has offered the aid of her
physicians to her victim, still hovers around her lovely
lips. Habituated to murder and bloodshed, what to
her is the bishop's wrath, since she is sure that she has
removed him from her path? His: "It is God's will
to summon me from this world now!" appears to ring
pleasantly in her ears. The priest, who stands between
her and the death-bed, holding the sacrament in his
right hand and gazing in mute wrath at the guilty
woman, is an exquisite figure. Nor are the two dukes,
who accompany the queen, forgotten. The prelate's
sleeping-room is low, yet not destitute of ornament.
The bedstead, the heavy beams of the ceiling, the large
pattern of the mosaic of the floor and the curtain of the
couch, the pillars, and the heavy angular chair in which
Fredegunde sits — everything, even the costume and
armor of the dukes, is genuine. Such must have been
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
21
the appearance of a bishop's sleeping-room in the
Merovingian era. There is nothing modern — neither
in the accessories nor the personages. Everything oc-
cupies its right place, and the curse of the murdered
man echoes shrilly and awfully amid the quiet of the
death-chamber. The beautiful woman still smiles, but
it seems as if her limbs were already growing rigid
under the ban of the malediction.
In i860, before the completion of this picture, the
first fruit of Leys' instruction had already appeared in
the magnificent painting destined to instantly raise
Tadema to the ranks of the first artists of his time and
make his name famous. The material to be trans-
formed in his soul and on his canvas into the brilliant
scene instinct with life, that is shown our readers in the
adjoining copy, was derived from a brief admonition.
Chlodwig's wife, Chlotildis, was the daughter of the
third of the four sons of the Burgundian king, Gunde-
vech. Prior to her marriage with the great Chlodwig,
her uncle Gundobad, from base greed, had stabbed her
father, Chilperich, and hurled her mother, with a stone
around her neck, into the water to be drowned. After
22
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
having, as queen of France, shared her husband's
grandeur and mourned for him — he died in his forty-
fifth year—she, who, "in all decorum and constant be-
nevolence," resided at Tours, said to her half-grown
sons: "Do not let me repent, my dear sons, that I
have lovingly reared you. Remember with wrath, I
beg you, the outrage I have endured, and avenge
wisely and boldly the deaths of my father and mother."
Tadema shows us the noble queen during the effort
to steel the avenging arms, and the axe the boy is
throwing for practice — perhaps the "Franziska," his
father understood how to swing so powerfully — is not
hurled merely against the target erected; no, the mark
that stands before the prince's mental vision is doubt-
less the brow of the hated murderer, his uncle.
His mother, with her youngest son clinging to her
side, is watching him. He knows it and summons
all his strength and dexterity to display his skill. His
instructor, the armed warrior, who has bent low on one
side to watch the cast, is an exquisite and strikingly
lifelike figure. Before the queen, who is seated on a
throne under the pillared roof of a corridor which sur-

LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
23
rounds the court-yard, stands her second son, a deli-
cate little lad; but he, too, holds an axe in his hand
and is only waiting until his older brother has per-
formed his task and it will be his turn to throw.
Queen Chlotildis rejoices in her children's strength, yet
her features express care and sorrow. She is thinking
of past grief, and perhaps her boding heart tells her
what anguish these children, she is training for
avengers, will cause her in the future by their guilty
shedding of blood. There is not a single figure among
the courtiers which is not extremely individual and
attractive.
The young master has clearly shown in this picture
his Dutch training, but shuns the chiaro-oscuro and
light-effects of a Rembrandt, and here, as in the ma-
jority of his later paintings, places the objects repre-
sented in clear, broad daylight. This treatment lends
most of Tadema's pictures the brightness and clearness
so strikingly peculiar to the non-connoisseur, and per-
mits the artist to everywhere assert the value of his
colors.
After the "Training of Chlotildis' Sons" had ex-
24
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
cited the greatest enthusiasm in the art exhibition at
Antwerp in i860, it passed into the possession of the
King of Belgium, and Rennefeld's engraving of the
picture soon made the tour of the world. It was fol-
lowed by a series of other paintings of the Merovingian
era: first, Guntram Boso who, while conducting his
daughters from Poitiers, is attacked on the way by
Chilperich's men and, after commending the poor girls
to God and His saints, kills their leader and saves his
children. The death of Galsvintha, who is strangled
for Fredegunde's sake, is also mentioned here.
Being perfectly familiar with the history of the
Frankish Kings, he had also known the story of the
most prominent poet of their time, Venantius Fortu-
natus, who is so closely associated with the life of the
saintly Radegunde. This pious princess, deeply incensed
because her husband Chlotar had stained his hands
with the blood of the last son of the Thuringian kings,
had left him and found peace in the convent of Poi-
tiers. How gratefully she must have listened to the
poet in priestly garb, as in the abbess' quiet cell he
read aloud to her the elegy upon the fall of the Thur-
LOKENZ ALMA TADEMA.
25
ingian Kingdom, her beloved home. He had clothed
it in the form of a letter to the last surviving scion of
her illustrious race and sent it to Constantinople, where
the latter had retired. He had also sung the hapless
Galsvintha's fate and, though his verses are often im-
pure and not wholly free from the affectation and of-
fensive want of taste of his time, many lines are marked
by genuine warmth of heart, an emotion he seems to
have felt for the cloistered queen, and which his whole
bearing expresses in the beautiful picture "Venantius
reading his poems to Radegunde."
The year 1863 was specially momentous to Ta-
dema, for in it he lost his beloved mother, made his
first visit to Italy (Florence, Rome, and Naples) and
married his first wife, a young French girl of the an-
cient noble family of Dumoulin de Bougirard. The
u Praetextatus" and the "Venantius reading his
Verses " are the first paintings emanating from his pil-
grimage to Rome that became known to us, and
Vosmaer is right when — especially in the last named
picture — he notes a perceptible improvement over
Tadema's earlier productions, admirable as they were
26
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
ill their way. This refers particularly to the coloring
and the vigor and clearness with which the artist ex-
presses-his conception.
Tadema's artistic genius, like his whole character, is
thoroughly open, frank, and joyous, and he could not
possibly find constant pleasure in the scenes of horror
and deeds of rude violence of the Merovingian epoch,
no matter how many picturesquely effective subjects
they might offer. Therefore in Italy he turned from
the Frank royal family, and if in the " Praetextatus,"
the "Venantius," and the three pictures from the life of
an honorable woman (Galsvintha) painted in 1878, he
went back to it again, it was probably because he had
planned the first picture before this departure, and the
second united, as it were, the old material with the
fresh matter that poured in upon him from Rome and
Hellas. Venantius Fortunatus' verses were written in
the language of Horace and often contain echoes of
the poetry of the Roman classic writers. He was at-
tracted by these greater men; but it is still a marvel
that one so thoroughly familiar with the Merovingian
era did not use the Bishop of Vienna, Eididius Avitus,
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
27
whose "Beginning of the World" has been shown by
Guizot to bear so close a resemblance to Milton's
"Paradise Lost."
While in Italy he lost his taste for the representa-
tion of isolated historical events. He fared, as every
student of history must fare under the present method
of historical instruction in all schools and with the con-
tents and arrangement of our historical text-books —
history in them means simply political history. What
is taught is the fate of reigning families and individual
kings, the encounters of nations in war and battles, and
the development of strength or the decline in power
and loss of territory of different peoples. Better teachers
discuss the characters of the rulers and other striking
personal traits, as well as the legislation of govern-
ments; but they, too, are more eager to accurately
describe the course of a bloody battle than to enter
into the daily life of the contending nations, and
carefully delineate the course of existence in time of
peace.
The student leaves the gymnasium with the knowl-
edge of numerous political events, many names of
28
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
kings, and dates. Not until, released from school
restraint, he goes back independently to the sources of
information, does he discover that he has learned little
of the character and life of the peoples he has been
shown. He has only known them in a state of turmoil
and restless excitement. As soon as the sensible lover
of the historic life of mankind discovers this fact, he
turns from the political history of royal families and
governments, and perceives that a peopled true history
is the history of its civilization, which teaches the
normal character of nations, their life in a condition of
health, and he joyfully perceives how much more
delightful it is to make himself familiar with the homes
of the people to be investigated, the regulations of
their government, their civil and social life, their
religion and science, than to know the names and
bloody deeds of their kings and the battles they
fought.
From the kingdom of the Franks Tadema turned,
as has been said, to Rome and Hellas, and here the
progress of civilization awakened an interest that far
outweighed every other. If he had commenced by
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
29
picturing with brush and pencil isolated events that
had occurred in the Merovingian royal family, in
Rome, the world's centre, his gaze extended to the
borders of the earth, and instead of seeking subjects in
the pages of a vivid historian, he fixed his eyes on the
nations of antiquity, and without troubling himself
much about their political history, began to investigate
their life in all its phases. The aspect of nature in
Southern Europe appealed powerfully to his soul.
The deep blue of the sky which overarches Italy, the
varying hues of the waves that wash its shore, made a
profound impression upon him and blended their
glitter with the sunny radiance of his own artist soul.
He examined marble, the mother of so many works of
art, wherever he found it: in its quarry, amid ruins, and
in new palaces, and learned to know it in every stage of
its existence, every shade of coloring, and every imagi-
nable light. Like a beloved friend, whom we clasp
until every feeling of his soul lies open before us, he
penetrated alt the mysteries of this wonderful stone
and learned to represent it new and weather-beaten, in
monotone and variegated, in the brightest sunlight and
30
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
the deepest shadow, with such fidelity to nature that
the critic's searching gaze cannot distinguish the
painted marble in his pictures from the genuine.
With equal care he studied the green of the cypress,
the brilliant colors of the poppies and anemonies of the
South, the pale pink hues of the oleander blossoms
and the noble form and tint of the pines. I have
spent delightful sunny days with him on the shore of
the Mediterranean, and witnessed how tenderly he
appropriated to himself nature in the South, how
untiringly he searched for a certain shrub he meant to
use, and how widely his soul opened to the spell of
light and color with which the Ligurian strand is so
richly blessed. One beautiful spring morning — the
sea was sparkling like pure sapphires and the prince's
garden, after a rainy day, was displaying the most lux-
uriant vernal green foliage — he stood silently beside
me a long time, revelling in this splendor; at last,
drawing a deep breath, he exclaimed: "Can there be
anything more superb? And yet fools say that pale-
green and blue do not harmonize!"
He entered into the lives of the men of ancient
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
31
times as thoroughly as into the natural scenery of
Southern Europe, and soon became familiar with
everything relating to the persons and surroundings of
the rulers, the nobles' dress, the arms and ornaments of
the army; but he was even more eager to learn the
appearance of the citizens' houses, the workshops of
artists and artisans, the markets and the baths. The
sailor's boat, the fisherman's net, the labor of the vine-
dresser and husbandman — everything appertaining to
the daily life of the ancients — from the noblest work
of art to the most insignificant clay jug the potter
turned on his wheel — possessed interest for him. His
scientific perception carried him into the very heart of
family life. Every garment, every ornament which had
been worn by men and women, nay, even the way that
the children had been clothed and educated became
familiar to him. He soon understood the arrangement
of the houses so thoroughly that he could assign each
utensil its proper place—there is not a piece of furni-
ture, not a vessel possessed by the ancients of which he
does not own specimens or copies. The same remark
may be made of musical instruments, and no living
32
LOKENZ ALMA TADEMA.
man knows better how they were used by the ancients,
and in what way the latter trod the mazes of the dance.
He collected every scrap of information that has
reached our day about social pleasures in Egypt,
Rome, and Hellas, and when he shows his friends pay-
ing the last honors to the dead, it might be supposed
that he had witnessed the wailing of the widows, and
the grief of the king from whom the will of the
Supreme Being had snatched his first-born. Though
he had not remained ignorant during his school-days
of the religion of ancient times, he now investigated
the temple ruins in Italy and made himself acquainted
with the costumes and privileges of the priests, the
routine of the worship, the sacrifices, and festal pro-
cessions.
He probably reads and studies many an ancient
poet and author and the best books upon the life of
ancient times, but the sources from whence he obtains
the largest and best material are the monuments them-
selves. There is no bronze or marble monument, no
wall-painting, no vase-picture, no mosaic, no work of
the ancient potter's, stone-cutter's, or goldsmith's art,
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
33
which he has not studied and placed in the treasury of
his knowledge. So at last he could not help feeling as
much at home in ancient as in modern times. The
epoch of human life when the good and the beautiful,
uniting, hovered before the struggling soul as the final
end to be attained, was far nearer to him and offered
much deeper satisfaction to his genius than his own
time, when beauty is overshadowed by utility, goodness
by craft, and it is considered as commendable to with-
draw from nature as in ancient times it was held praise-
worthy to dwell near to her and live in accordance
with her laws. His idealistic spirit yearned to escape
from a society which, like the blase, values only what
is called real; and if in this flight he sought for kin-
dred by whom he was sure of being understood as
he understood, he certainly found them in his beloved
"ancients." He became one of them, and in return
for his loving appreciation of every emotion of their
beautiful and natural lives, they gave him graceful and
lofty, touching and bewitching subjects.
Tadema has often been called the archaeologist of
artists, and not unjustly, for he is more familiar with
3
34
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
the scenes of ancient life he depicts than many a
scientist; but his knowledge is as free from the dust of
books as the astronomy of the desert Arab, who has
learned to find his way by the firmament over his
head, because the mute, eternal wanderers of the sky
point out his path through the darkness and adorn the
cool, gracious night, which is far dearer to him than the
scorching glare of day.
In the same way, Tadema obtains his knowledge of
ancient life because its purely human civilization seems
to him infinitely more attractive than the sober present,
to which destiny sent him too late. Gay and untram-
melled as his ancients themselves, he stands before the
easel, and if the picture he creates, both in detail and
as a whole, is as thoroughly and faultlessly antique as
though he had summoned to his aid a whole arsenal of
learned paraphernalia, he has done nothing except
recall to mind the costume, house, utensils, garden
and room of a dear friend, to whose home he has often
invited himself as a guest, and where he has looked
around him with open eyes. Antiquity is the home of
his genius, and therefore this genius seeks its materials
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
35
there. It would be foreign to him to seek subjects
in the present. The whole world belongs to the
artist, and even time imposes no barriers upon him.
Any material which possesses a human interest is avail-
able, but to represent a subject chosen from a period
and situations so remote, in such a manner that it
bewitches and appeals to the hearts of posterity,
requires the one thing which renders Tadema's pictures
of ancient life so unique and inimitable: thorough
sympathy with the period to be represented. He has
obtained an intellectual citizenship among the ancients,
and it is by virtue of having become one of them that
he can represent their life with such peerless reality and
truth.
In 1863, at the portal as it were of his road
through antiquity, he created his first Egyptian picture.
In reply to my query how he had reached the people
to whom, for a quarter of a century, I have devoted the
best time and strength of my life, he said:
"Where else should I have commenced when I first
began to make myself familiar with the life of the
ancients? The first thing the child learns of ancient
36
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
times leads it to the court of the Pharaohs, to Goshen
in Egypt, and when we go back to the source of the
art and science of the other nations of antiquity how
often we reach your Egypt!"
Besides, there was something in the grandeur and
peculiarity of Egyptian art, and the original, orderly,
and profoundly moral civilization of the Egyptian
nation, which awed, attracted, and fascinated him.
Like all true artists and lovers of art, his eyes were open
to the beauty of the works, not only of the architects,
but the sculptors of ancient Egypt, and I have seen
Drake, Gnauth, and other famous artists as well as he,
gazing with admiration at the sculptures of the ancient
kingdom, and heard painters like G. Richter, Gentz,
Lenbach, and Piloty speak of them. I saw the
distinguished archaeologist Friederichs, who died so
prematurely, change his opinion while standing before
these sculptures in the museum of Boulak, and from a
scorner become a panegyrist of Egyptian art. Tadema
speaks with the greatest warmth of the decorative art
of the Egyptians, so many beautiful specimens of
which have been preserved on the monuments along
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
37
the Nile. He is ready to recognize beauty wherever
he meets it and, with his marked appreciation of what
is peculiar, even finds great pleasure in the painting of
the Japanese and has used numerous Japanese subjects
in the decoration of the artistic interior of his house in
London.
Vosmaer makes his Aisma, — for whom Tadema
served as a model, — in answer to the question:
"What! Japanese? Do you call that beautiful?"
give a reply which exactly coincides with our mas-
ter's opinion:
"Beautiful? Admirable! Their flowers and animals
are masterly. Look at Mrs. van Buren's fan; but look,
look closely, observe carefully. Can anything be more
graceful, firmer, or more freely and boldly sketched?"
Then he compares Pompeian wall-paintings with
the pictures on the Japanese fan, and says:
"Now look at these flowers, sprays, and birds,
what firm, spirited drawing! Sometimes they go still
farther. Do you remember in one of the halls a
sparrow on a branch, gray-green, downy, almost
colorless, — it is masterly."
38
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
In the same way the firm drawing and spirited
designs of the exquisite bas-reliefs in the tombs of
the Pharaonic era pleased him. With the aid of his
vivid imagination he understood how to release them
from the stone, infuse them with the warm blood of
life, and place them, animated and sentient, in new
relations of his own invention, yet which bore the
stamp of the peculiar Egyptian features that renders
it so easy for antiquarians to distinguish the Pharaonic
period from all others. While doing this he carefully
avoided the errors a strictly hieratical canon compelled
the Egyptian artists and sculptors to commit, and
cautiously relaxed what seems stiff and rigid in the
monuments, for he knew that the Egyptians were no
nation of prim pedants, but excitable, prone to joyous
festal mirth, keen witticism, and passionate grief. Yet,
when he represents them under the spell of their
priestly laws, he understands how to give them so stiff
and solemn a bearing that one might suppose they had
just stepped out of the reliefs on the walls of temple or
tomb. Still, even here, we vainly seek for those
peculiarities binding rules must have imposed. When
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
39
the Egyptians forgot life's cares in holiday pleasures,
they must have appeared as he represented them in his
first Egyptian picture (1863). "A Festival three
thousand years ago." Many an inhabitant of Mem-
phis has stood before his house like the dignified

GROUP OF CHESS-PLAYERS.
man he painted two years later, and how true to
life, yet how thoroughly Egyptian is the "Group
of Chess-Players" (1865), the bold pencil sketch
of which I have seen and sincerely admired. To
behold a man who usually dispenses with clothing,
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
engaged in an occupation which presupposes a high
degree of intellectual development, is somewhat per-
plexing to us, and because this nude figure is doing
something wholly unlike what we are accustomed to
see in men of his ilk the impression produced upon us
is powerful and pleasing. Certain conventional ideas
have been formed concerning the character of every
nation. Just as most persons consider the Frenchman
frivolous, they imagine the Egyptian dull and gloomy.
To think of him as light-hearted indicates a better
knowledge of his life. Admirably as Tadema under-
stands how to depict the Egyptian at his games, amid
holiday pleasures, and in moments of joyous excite-
ment, his success is even more masterly, as we shall
see, in picturing him in the most tragical moments of
existence.
I have endeavored in what has been said to sum
up Tadema's relations to the ancients. The viewer of
his paintings may be sure that everything they show
him accurately represents a past reality, and so far they
are instructive, but this quality is far inferior in value to
the fact that whatever he creates reveals to us a wealth
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
41
of beauty which finds its way to the soul capable of
appreciating the beautiful. They teach us to see nature
and men more clearly than is granted to the eyes of
those whose brow the muse has not kissed; we behold
in them the fleeting visions of life retained in permanent
forms and flooded with that magical charm which,
when we seek to express it in words, we call, "poetic."
In such a manner he has brought near to us the
most varied aspects and emotions of life. The figures
he shows us usually wear the garb of ancient times, yet
they are neither old nor new, but purely human, and
when he makes the child laugh or the widow weep, it
is not only a little Roman or a Frank princess who
laughs or mourns, but the careless child and the woman
who has lost her husband, as they must have laughed
or wept in any age of the world. He has full posses-
sion of that gift of genius which represents, in a single
individual, the type of a whole class, and his Roman
girl, bringing towels to the ladies who are bathing, is
not the bath-attendant Lydia or Syra, but the "bal-
neatrix;" the man reading his verses aloud is not
merely Venantius Fortunatus, but the type of the
42
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
author reading his works. His purpose is always and
everywhere distinctly intelligible, and one need not
be an art-critic to fully appreciate the charm of form
and coloring in figures and scenes placed in the bright-
est light, and enjoy with his whole soul the elegance
and faultless care winch distinguish everything that
leaves this master's studio.
From boyhood he has known how to fit up his
work-room in a way that satisfied his sense of beauty.
Even in Brussels his studio, 51, Rue du Palais,,
obtained a certain degree of celebrity on account of its
thoroughly artistic and extremely peculiar style of dec-
oration. From this studio, besides the pictures already
mentioned, came the following creations: "Home
from Market" (1865). The porter of a Roman house
is opening the door for his mistress, who is returning
from the flower-market with her little daughter and her
slaves. This is a genre picture from the heart of
Roman life, and the same remark may be made of its
successor, though Tadema has taken his subject from a
book, the poems of Catullus. He was particularly-
charmed by this natural and thoughtful poet, so he

ROPE JUMPER. — (A CRAYON SKETCH).
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
43
painted him with his beloved Lesbia (1865) and
showed us the same beauty in another picture, where
she was grieving over her dead bird. In this he fol-
lowed the pretty poem " On the Sparrow," in which
the Roman, whose erotic imagination often knows
neither curb nor rein, understands how to trifle so
charmingly. A girl's eyes, reddened by weeping for
the death of a bird, sounds modern, and had not
Catullus himself sung it, and Juvenal written to satiety
of another little maid,
Who wept until her eyes were red,
Over her darling sparrow dead.
(Turbavit cujus nitidos extinctus passer ocellos).
our critical reformers who — because they themselves
do not know the ancients — brand as anachronisms
every touch of sentiment in representations of ancient
life, would have pronounced this charming picture "a
modern subject in an antique mask." A Berlin wise-
acre— I think it was in the Tribune — actually de-
clared it to be a lamentable error to make a Roman
44
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
woman " who had no pity for animals " weep over a
dead bird.
From the Brussels studio also came: "Agrippina
with the ashes of Germanicus;" the " Entrance to a
Roman theatre," where, as the play-bill shows, a piece
by Terence is to be performed; the " Preparations for
a Festival in a Pompeian House," a picture in which
the artists power and subtle sense of beauty is most
brilliantly shown in the girl weaving garlands, as well
as the charming painting: "Glaucus and Lydia."
In 1867, after having so long drawn his material
from the private life of the ancients, he again turned to
history and produced two historical paintings: "The
Praetorians summoning Claudius to the imperial throne
after the murder of Caligula," (freshly treated and re-
peated in 1872) and "Tarquinius Superbus." This
picture represents the arrogant ruler striking off the
heads of the poppies which have grown taller that the
others in the field. I have not had the privilege of
seeing this painting myself, but competent art-critics
give it a specially high rank on account of its depth
and richness of coloring and the beautiful contrast

DANCING GIRL.—(A CRAYON SKLiTCU).
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
45
between the outside wall lying deep in shadow and
the field of poppies glittering in the sunlight.
In 1867, he also created the " Egyptians Lament-
ing the Dead." In one of the small side temples
which the inscriptions describe as the birth-houses of
the divinity, that is the place where Isis bore the
young Horus, the mummy of the departed one lies
upon a bier, beside which stands the sarcophagus that
is to receive it. The place is subtly chosen, for the
divinity said to be born here is Horus, that is, the prin-
ciple of the eternal renewal of nature, and like the
young god the soul of the dead, by another birth, is to
behold the light of a new world. The widow, deeply
absorbed in her grief, kneels at the feet of the mummy,
while priests chant lamentations to the notes of lutes
and sistrums. The thick fan-shaped leaves of the
palm-trees in the temple-groves peer through the open-
ings between the pillars, bending to bestow shade and
blessing upon the scene of sorrow and death. How
genuinely Egyptian is every architectural form, every
instrument, every countenance, yet how profoundly
and thoroughly human is this magnificent work of art!
46
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
At the same.time as the "Egyptians Lamenting
the Dead" or shortly after its completion, Tadema,
perhaps to shake off the anguish to which he had given
such vivid expression, painted the Siesta (1868) a
superb picture of Greek life, full of the most blissful
repose.
In the cool shade rest thee now!
Fair, Bathyllus, is this tree;
Through its foliage to and fro
Zephyr wanders dreamily.
In this painting — of life-size — a youth and an old
man, like Anacreon and his favorite, have sat down
together in friendly companionship. Surrounded by
an atmosphere of sweet repose, they listen, under the
protection of Aphrodite, the bestower of happiness,
amid flowers, wine, and fruit, to the dulcet tones of a
flute.
Tadema's next picture also transports us to Greece,
and this time to Athens in the period of its most bril-
liant development. It shows us Phidias himself, after
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
47
4ie has completed the frieze for the Parthenon, the
noblest of all works of sculpture. The procession at
the Panathenaic festival, with its handsome youths,
steeds, and riders, is finished. A light barrier separates
the spectators on the scaffold from the creating artist.
The bearded man in the centre behind this barrier, with
the roll in his right hand, is the master himself, who
with modest confidence has invited the principal per-
sonages in Athens to view his completed work. Who
could the youth at the left, standing among the spec-
tators beyond the barrier, be save Alcibiades? The
dignified man opposite Phidias who, absorbed in
contemplation, grasps the rope with both hands,
must be Pericles, the beautiful woman on his right,
Aspasia. A remarkable painting! The artist under-
stands how to reproduce the marble the sculptor uses,
and the most marvellous creation of sculpture is here
paid the highest honor in a masterpiece of the art of
coloring.
As a bright companion-piece to this grave picture
appeared the charming "Flower-Girl," who, with the
gay children of the spring she offers for sale, will
48
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
probably remind every one of Dionysius' graceful epi-
gram : *
"Roses are blooming on thy cheek, with roses thy basket is
laden,
Which dost thou sell? The flowers? Thyself? Or both, my
pretty maiden?"
The " Boudoir" and " The Embarkation" are sub-
jects drawn from the private life of Roman citizens.
The latter picture, a little masterpiece of the most deli-
cate effects of color, I have admired in the house of
the famous Dutch marine-artist Mesdag, a home rich
in the most exquisite pearls of the art of painting. In
the "Sick-Chamber" and another superb picture,
which we might call "Before Churching "— it might
have served our own Claus Meyer as a model — he
has been pleased to join the ranks of the old Nether-
land painters.
In 1870, he completed the charming picture " Les-
bia's House" (the poet's beautiful love is listening to
* Six years before, this same epigram suggested to the writer of
this essay a scene in An Egyptian Princess." Vol. II. page 197,
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
49
Catullus' verses). Then our master began his superb
"Vintage Festival." This composition — whose length
would seem to indicate that it was intended for the
decoration of a frieze— is so well known in Germany,
through Blanchard's engraving, that I need enter into
no minute description. The brightest light floods the
temple which the vine-dressers have entered to give
thanks for the blessings of the autumn. Before them,
with a light, dancing step, moves the beautiful young
priestess of the god, with vine-leaves twined amid her
waving golden hair, and in her hand the torch with
which she is to light the fire upon the altar of the
divinity.
How graceful are the movements of the girls who
accompany with the music of the double flute and
tambourine the singing of the multitude in the hall
which opens in the background; how vigorous are the
men who bear in their strong arms the huge jars con-
taining the gift of the god. Quietly, yet deeply pene-
trated by a devout feeling of gratitude, the procession
moves forward, and the most genuine holiday mood
cheerily and reverently pervades temple and throng.
4
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The marble gleams, the bronze shimmers in marvellous
hues, and in the clear radiant light of this festal day
every face, every utensil, every ornament, every seam
between the stones has its full and complete value.
Whoever remembers this picture feels as if he had been
permitted to share as a guest in the holiday rejoicing
of the Hellenes.
This rare work of art was not finished in Brussels,
but in London. Tadema had lost his wife and a son
in the Belgian capital, and had learned by experience
that, though the Netherlanders knew how to value and
praise his art, they were by no means inclined to make
even the smallest sacrifice for the artist. It is scarcely
credible, yet in Graaff's biography of Tadema the
statement may be read in italics, as an undeniable fact,
that from 1856 to 1880 — nearly a quarter of a cen-
tury — our master did not earn in his wealthy native
country, Holland, more than a thousand florins,
though a painting he disposed of in 1867 for six hun-
dred florins was resold for thirteen thousand. Even
after he had reached the pinnacle of fame, neither the
king, the government, nor any art institute in his
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
51
native land gave him the smallest order. Nor was any
attempt made to obtain one of his masterpieces,
though in England and America his pictures were
worth their weight in gold, and the people of France,
Germany, and Belgium coveted a sight of them,
loaded them and their creator with the most dis-
tinguished honors, and more than once purchased
them at a high, nay the highest price.
Even an artist wants a livelihood, and England,
which not only knew how to value his paintings but
was disposed to obtain the works of his genius at a
suitable price, attracted him with powerful magnets.
The English character pleased the Frieselander, whose
race is akin to the Anglo-Saxons; many influential
friends and fellow-artists urged him to go to Great
Britain, and finally his heart also drew him thither, for
one of the fairest daughters of Albion, Miss Laura
Epps, herself a talented artist, returned his love and in
1871 gave him her hand in marriage.
So, with his first wife's two pretty little daughters
(Laurence and Anne) he moved to London and there
established a second home. The first picture he
52
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
finished in it was the "Vintage Festival" commenced
in Brussels, a description of which has been given
above.
The beauty and oddity of the decorations and fur-
niture of the studio where he gave it the last stroke of
the brush, and the rooms adjoining this studio in
Townshend House, Regent's Park, the part of London
which least lacks the light and open air the artist
needs, must soon become famed far beyond the bor-
ders of England. True, a few years after he had
crossed the "Salve" on the threshold of this new
home (1874) a large portion of the rare articles and
pieces of furniture in it were destroyed by a terrible
explosion at the neighboring North Gate, but he soon
repaired the damage and made Townshend House
what it is now: the delight of all lovers of art, beauty,
comfort, and a luxury that pleases the eye, offers it the
most charming and varied impressions, and stirs the
mind to question and investigate. Its creation would
be impossible even for the millions of a Croesus,
though he should obtain the aid of a great artist,
because the latter does not evoke for a stranger all the
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
S3
ideas of comfort and beauty that dwell in his mind;
and nothing but living in his own home will suggest
to his genius such novel and happy ideas for supplying
what is deficient as well as perfecting what was already
beautiful and charming.
The lower story of the Tadema-home resembles ex-
ternally a Pompeian house, but its proportions are so
noble that this does not immediately strike the eye.
The knocker — a bronze antique mask — falls upon
the steel plate on the massive outer door, and we cross
the hospitable " Salve" of the threshold. The lower
story is the special abode of the mistress of the house.
Here is her studio, a pleasant room, in whose simple,
but comfortable and graceful furniture and ornaments,
many Japanese designs are blended. The piano in
daily use is adorned with exquisite decorations by the
hand of Tadema and his wife, and on one wall of this
cosy room the master's superb picture "The Death of
the First-born/' of which I have yet to write, reminds
us of the seriousness of life.
From this studio, where many a charming picture
by Mrs. Laura Tadema was finished, we pass through
54
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
a peculiar apartment, hung with Spanish leather, into
a cheerful reception-room that pleasantly recalls the
viridarium of Roman houses. The dining-room,
exquisitely adorned with flower and fruit pieces in
water-colors, adjoins this apartment, which after a meal
is inimitably inviting for rest, reverie, or conversation.
Luxuriant leaf-plants, in tubs of a singularly artistic
shape, transport us in imagination into the open air, an
illusion heightened by a jet of water flowing from an
antique mask into a marble basin. Its low plashing
increases the dreamy mood, as night and day it rises to
Dalou's bust of the master, which stands above the
fountain. A hammock invites sleep and Chinese
lanterns, suspended from the ceiling, diffuse a varying
but pleasant light through this peaceful green nook.
The lower story also contains the library. Here
books adorn the walls; but in the Gothic table,
made after Tadema's own design, art again asserts
itself.
The staircase leading to the upper story is plain.
An ornamental border, in which a pomegranate design
appears, runs along the dark-brown walls; but there is

LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
55
little color to be seen here, for the ascending visitor
beholds a row of photographs of the master's paintings.
Above is the workshop from which these creations
came, are still coming, and it is to be hoped may long
continue to come, unless Tadema should find himself
obliged (owing to the sinking of the ground) to
exchange his present home for a new and per-
haps still more beautiful one. It is a handsome,
well-lighted, square apartment. At the entrance, on
the right, stands a statue of the master, whose own
hand has adorned the walls with exquisitely-chosen
Pompeian designs in the subdued tints the untrained
eye often pronounces faded, but which could not have
been different in ancient days, because — Tadema's
own remark — the mosaics, where the hues of the
stones are perpetual, are colored with the same wise
moderation. Every ornament here is Greek, and in
the chests behind the curtains are kept the costumes
and archaeological works the artist needs for his
models and for occasional reference. Pieces of furni-
ture of antique design serve to complete the studio,
where an artist of ancient Pompeii would undoubtedly
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
feel at home. This scene of the most untiring industry
rarely lacks plants in bloom.
Once Tadema was fascinated for weeks by a large
oleander which he had taken with him from Brussels
to London, where for the first time it covered itself
with blossoms. He had no peace until he had suc-
ceeded in fixing upon canvas the wealth and delicacy
of its luxuriant rose-hued flowers — and how thor-
oughly he knows the charm of color and the life of the
anemones he learned to love upon the Riviera, and
which are frequently sent to him from there by friends,
how he studies, enjoys, and reproduces the roses,
poppies, and other bright-hued children of Flora!
There they stand, so true to nature that one feels
tempted to please the sense of touch with their velvety
softness, yet looking more closely one discovers that
their perfect resemblance to the originals is by no
means due to a wearisome number of strokes of the
brush. Tadema himself has called his friends' atten-
tion to the apparent ease with which they were
produced. A happy stroke transfers them from the
retina of the eye, which so faithfully retains everything
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
57
the artists glance perceives, to the wall or canvas, and
what has once been accurately seen and noted may
dispense with labored and painstaking execution.
A few steps lead from the studio to several com-
municating rooms of moderate size. In the first the
wainscoted ceiling is supported by marble Ionic
columns, Oriental rugs of rare beauty cover the inlaid
floor, and cushions of exquisite colors lie heaped on
chairs and divans. None of these rooms are separated
from each other by doors; arched entrances divide
them, and in the doorway of the pillared chamber
hangs a wonderful old curtain — well-nigh matchless —
brought from the palace of a Venetian noble. In the
next apartment, the Gold Room, the light falls through
panes of Mexican onyx, which subdues it sufficiently to
lend this rare chamber the magical, yet not dazzling
brilliancy Tadema wished to give it. Walls and ceiling
are entirely covered with gilding, and it is difficult to
imagine the effect produced by this unusual decoration
when illumined with sunlight tempered by the onyx
panes. This remarkable style of ornament is due to a
lucky accident. Tadema at first had only tried what
58
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
the effect would be if he used gold, the natural frame
of pictures, as a background for the paintings to be
hung here; but when he found how admirably the
gilded walls looked, he put up no pictures, but created
the Gold Room and furnished it with equal elegance
and taste. That the impression produced is very
brilliant is a matter of course, and Meynet's opinion
that it is exactly in harmony with the taste of the
ancients, especially that of Later Rome and the
Byzantines, is perfectly correct. Nero, with all his
crimes a thorough artist in his nature, wanted- to live in
a golden palace; why should not the painter of ancient
Rome try a golden room? Over the wide entrance
to this unique apartment, on each side of a beautiful
rosette, is a semicircular arch, and these two arches,
with the beam on which they rest, form two niches,
in which rare antique vases and other choice specimens
of ancient pottery are arranged with picturesque
abundance in apparent disorder. From them an ample
curtain of Chinese silk, in shades of yellow, blue, and
gold, hangs to the floor, which is made of ebony and
maple. Along the wall runs a socle five feet high of
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
59
Byzantine design, above whose beautiful cornice is an
exquisite miniature copy in ivory, upon an ebony
background, of Phidias' famous procession of mounted
men from the frieze of the Parthenon. With this
exception the eye, wherever it turns, sees nothing but
glittering gold; and the few dark pieces of furniture,
as well as the large silver mixing-vessel (a copy of the
superb one found at Hildesheim) the bright-hued
curtain, and the strange specimens of foreign art in
the dark niches often glow with magical reflected
lights.
In this room also stands the Tadema grand piano,
which has attained a certain renown and scarcely has
its equal in the world, not only on account of the rare
beauty of its Byzantine form, the costly materials from
which it is manufactured, and the ornamental band
with which Tadema has adorned it, but because it
contains a very rare collection of autographs. The
inner side of the movable lid is partly covered with fine
parchment, on which all the virtuosos who have played
on the instrument have written their names, and it is
rare that any noted musician leaves London without
60 LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
having visited Townshend House and played before a
larger or smaller circle. This Gold Room adjoins a
charming little apartment, fitted up in every detail like
an old-fashioned room in Holland. This is lighted by
an exquisite Renaissance window, and is the scene of
our friend's happy family life and earnest labor. He
has so arranged it that his artistic eye can find pleasure
wherever he turns. What would exert a disturbing
influence upon the scientist is a necessity to the artist,
and where luxury clothes itself in genuine artistic
forms — as it does here — it should be greeted as a
living expression of a self-sacrificing appreciation of
beauty.
Vosmaer justly remarks that since Tadema's re-
moval to London, or rather since his marriage to a
daughter of Albion, his female figures have been differ-
ent from those of former days. They obtain more
robust proportions, a loftier, nobler stature, and the
golden hair of the Anglo-Saxon race often gleams from
his pictures. This hair also adorns the graceful head
of his wife, who deserves mention as a type of the
aristocratic beauty of English women.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
6l
The first four pictures commenced and finished
in Townshend House after wedding this rare life-
companion were "Pottery" the " Fete intime," " Re-
proaches " and " Cherries."
The last picture represents a beautiful woman
reclining on a tiger-skin and, in restful ease, feasting
her eyes on the glittering cherries she is about to eat.
It is nearly life-size, and he gave it to the cercle artis-
tique in Holland, of which he had long been a member.
"Caligula's Murder" was again painted here, and then
followed "Greek Wine," a bright picture from which
seems to echo the lines of Rufinus:
"Oh, Prodice, let us, when we bathe, with garlands our
temples entwine,
The while, from the beaker gigantic, gaily drink we the
foaming new wine."
How many similar verses Tadema might have had
in mind. One of the most beautiful — sung by
Meleagros — has a flavor of modern sentiment and
runs as follows:
62
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
"Mix, when thou dost fill the goblet,
With Heliodora's name the draught.
And on my brow the chaplet set
She gave me as the wine I quaffed!
With tears its roses seem bedewed,
As though the garland fair doth weep,
Because within mine arms I could
Not Heliodora's fair form keep."
The rose feels pity; flowers suggest transitoriness:
"Like this garland of flowers," sings a poet from
the anthology of his Rhodoclea, " thou wilt bloom and
fade." This fate will also be shared by the young
Greek wife, who in the painting "The last Roses" is
laying the late roses of autumn, as a pious offering, on
the marble altar.
I have been obliged to subdue my tone and suggest
by the last roses of the year and the next picture, "The
Widow," thoughts of winter and the transitoriness of
earthly happiness, because I knew that I was about to
bring before the reader's notice a painting which, in
my opinion, is the most touching ever created by an
artist's genius. Tadema has called this remarkable
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
63
work "The last Plague." The destroying angel has
entered the houses and palaces of Egypt. His terrible
office is to slay every first-born, and the inexorable
messenger of God has knocked at the heart of the
young heir to the throne and forced it to stop beating.
The room to which the artist leads us is perhaps a lofty
one, but he has cut the canvas just above the heads of
the pictured forms and we feel distressed and scarcely
able to breathe in this narrow space, where sickness
and sorrow have come, and the odor of incense, spices,
and flowers oppresses the lungs. On the king's lap
lies the heir slain by the pestilence, a beautiful boy,
whose head rests on the knee of his mother, who, over-
whelmed by passionate grief, presses her cheek upon
her darling's motionless breast, stirred by no breath, no
heart-throb. The dead child's arm hangs loosely
down, the rigid fingers, as if seeking help, clutch the
hem of his father's robe. A bandage still surrounds
the brow which a short time ago burned with such
feverish heat and ached with such unbearable pain.
The father sits as though petrified. With his left hand
he supports the young form, his right holds a flower;
64
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
the face is turned fully towards us. The fate that has
overtaken him is stronger than he. Shall he pray?
Shall he defy it? Shall he weep and join in his wife's
loud lamentations? All these questions can be read in
the features of this man, who holds himself so erect
outwardly because he has lost his mental poise and
would give way if he did not conquer himself. Beside
him crouches the physician, the living embodiment of
the naophoros every museum shows. He has done his
best, and ere being summoned to convey the body to
the embalmers, has time to think and ponder over
the insufficiency of his skill. Through the doorway is
seen the wailing multitude, and beyond them, Moses
and Aaron awaiting with proud composure the
monarch's decision. Funeral music is echoing through
the chamber of death. The nobles of the land have
thrown themselves before the king, perhaps to implore
him to avert future horrors and comply with the
demand of the terrible magicians outside : but he heeds
them as little as though they were part of the stone
floor.
It is this which stamps the picture with terrible
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
65
earnestness upon every spectators soul. When I sent
it to Gnauth (who died so prematurely) the director
of the artistic portion of my work " Egypt in Picture
and Word," he wrote: This picture produces the
impression of a divine hymn.
To the Egyptologist it tells much that the untu-
tored eye does not perceive. This is a resurrection of
real Egyptian life! There is nothing which did not
belong to the days of the Pharaohs. The halls of the
palace of Rameses III. were like this wall, this china
dish covered with flowers came from Tell el-Jehudije,
the physician wears the little cap of the Egyptian
-^Esculapius, Imhotep; the portable medicine-chest,
every jar, the mode of arranging the women's hair,
the head-gear of the men: everything is thoroughly
accurate; and as if the master had foreseen what was
not discovered until ten years after the completion of
his work, he laid at the feet of the corpse a garland of
flowers deceptively like those which have been found in
the royal coffins at Der el-Bachri. Had Tadema finished
nothing except this picture, he would still be entitled to
number himself among the foremost artists of his age.
5
66
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
This painting made a great sensation, not only in
London, but in Paris and Berlin, where it adorned the
autumn art-exhibition of the Academy. Henceforth
every lover of art in the capital, whenever a new
exhibition was opened, looked at once for Tadema's
pictures. In Munich, also, his genius was joyously
recognized, and as he loves Germany and rarely
neglects to have his larger works exhibited there, he
soon gained citizenship among German artists. Like
his master, Van Leys, he has often been in Germany,
and with the linguistic talent he possesses to a peculiar
degree, has learned to speak German so well that I was
often surprised by the graceful, unusual, and thoroughly
German phraseology he uses in fluent conversation.
Of course he speaks Italian, while Frenchmen and
Englishmen, when talking with him, take him for a fel-
low-countryman.
In 1874, he painted "Joseph, Overseer of the
Granaries," a picture which, in regard to coloring,
ranks among his best works. A copy may be found in
my " Egypt/' but it seems to me that in this painting
he has allowed himself, in depicting the figure of the
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
67
Pharaoh on the throne, to be too much influenced by
the mode of execution of the Egyptian artists, who
were trammelled by their canons. On the other hand
a magnificent and thoroughly real figure is represented
in the young Jewish Minister of Finance, Joseph, read-
ing aloud to his master from a papyrus-roll the new
measures of economy he has adopted.
In the same year (1874) he returned to Rome, and
painted first a Roman lady amusing herself by fishing
in the pond adjoining her villa, and afterwards the two
superb pictures respectively representing a gallery of
sculpture and a gallery of paintings in ancient Rome.
These works won him in Berlin the great gold medal,
cast into the shade most of the other paintings in the
exhibition of 1874, formed the daily topic of conversa-
tion in all art-circles, and paved the way to the highest
external distinction a government has to bestow, and
which has been obtained by few of his peers, the
Prussian Order of Merit, received in 1881. They
have become very well known through Blanchard's
engravings, and Tadema afterwards used the same
material again in an entirely different way.
68
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The finest of these pictures have been accessible to
few persons, as they are in the possession of the rich
art publisher Gambard of Nice, who reluctantly opens
to strangers his bewitchingly-located villa Les Palmiers
— a true fairy palace, surrounded by the loveliest
pleasure gardens and filled with superb paintings and
statuary. Both are equally admirable in drawing,
coloring, fidelity to nature, and archaeological accuracy.
In the Gambard "Sculpture Gallery" the centre of the
picture is a superb vase of some valuable dark stone,
which an elderly servant (the crescent-shaped ornament
on his neck marks him as a slave) is turning on its
pedestal to display it better to the aristocratic family
who are admiring, and perhaps intend to purchase it.
The marble tablet on the wall, and all the statues that
form the gallery or collection are masterpieces of the
art of imitation, and how true to life, how speaking,
how exquisitely grouped are the persons who are direc-
ting their attention to the vase. The rich gentleman,
who has sat down with his wife and is pointing out to
her what he particularly admires in the work of art
now being displayed; the children, who have advanced

SCULPTURE GALLERY IN AN'CIENT ROME.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
69
close to it and would like to touch it, as though it were
already their property; the beautiful young woman
behind them, perhaps their mother's sister, who is
restraining them and yet gazing at the vase — all this
is taken from the life and would be the same at the
present day as in ancient Rome. In the second gallery
the statue of Sophocles (Lateran) is the central point,
and the art-conversation being carried on about it by a
patrician of dignified bearing, a vivacious critic, and a
Roman lady is so well depicted that one fancies one
might follow it.
In the "Picture Gallery" the effects of light and
color are really bewitching. Who can forget the bright
sunshine streaming into the spacious hall through the
window just below the ceiling? Yet the spectator re-
members no less clearly the young artist who sits com-
pletely absorbed before the picture on the easel, as well
as the aristocratic Roman lady on the divan, who is look-
ing at it over his shoulder and holding a manuscript in
her hand. She is less in earnest than the youth, and the
papyrus might contain a description of the object repre-
sented, or simply the ephemeris, with the news of the day.
7o
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
In the second representation of the same material
special interest is aroused by the keen-eyed connoisseur
before the picture, the plump beauty on the cushions,
who is paying more heed to the painting than to her
young companion's explanations, and the clever face of
the critic. This man understands his business, yet he
is not seeking something to praise, but something to
condemn.
These two pictures possess a powerful spell of
attraction. Each new study of their rich details
bestows a fresh pleasure. We gaze with the specta-
tors, are delighted with what these galleries contain,
and their visitors are no less interesting than the gal-
leries themselves; for each one is a real person whose
face is worth learning to know, and with whom we
should be glad to enter into conversation. I dislike to
parade the technical catch-words of the art-critics: but
it may be said that an equally harmonious melody of
colors has echoed from few pictures.
In 1875, Tadema again went to Italy, and while
there and after his return to England, he completed
the " Cleopatra" and the three pictures to which he

PICTURE GALLERY IN ANCIENT ROME.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
71
gave the name "The tragedy of an estimable woman."
This color-trilogy refers to the unfortunate Galsvintha,
whose sad fate, little as Gregory of Tours can tell of
her, seems to have won Tadema's tender interest.
They represent: Galsvintha's arrival with her dowry at
her husband's court, her murder, and the miracle
which is said to have occurred after her death. "A
lamp"—so runs Gregory's narrative—"which was sus-
pended over her tomb by a rope, fell upon the floor,
though no one touched it, by the breaking of the rope,
and the hard pavement yielding, sank into it as though
it had been a soft mass, till it was covered, yet without
sustaining any injury. All who saw it were amazed
at the miracle," which is also related by Fortunatus.
"He is coming" takes us to Rome again. The
festival of Bacchus has begun, the shouts and the
music of the flutes have already died away, and the
lovely — we will say Lydia — clad in a rose-colored
robe, stands behind the curtain watching for her lover,
who will clasp her in his arms, and inspired by the god
whirl along in the throng of frantic revellers.*
*Blanchard has made an excellent engraving of this picture also.
72
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The next painting is called "After the Dance."
The festival of Bacchus is over, the pious frenzy has
ended, and the weary Bacchante stretches her beautiful
limbs on a wild beast's skin to rest.
After these genre pictures Tadema finished a larger
one, which in the fullest sense of the word is an histor-
ical painting, though it represents no one movement in
the history of the world. Here the artist has essayed
to depict in lines and colors his idea of the power,
influence, and environments of a Roman patrician.
For with subtle tact he has chosen, not the emperor's
court, where the armed guards, the numerous strange
and superb details would have required too large a
space, but the house of the greatest and most powerful
private citizen in the reign of Octavius Augustus, Mar-
cus Vipsanius Agrippa, whose proud device was:
"Absolutely obedient, but only to one,11 and of whom
Maecenas is said to have remarked, that he had grown
so great that there was nothing left for the emperor to
do except kill him or make him his son-in-law. Every
one knows him as Julia's husband, and whoever
searches the ruins of Rome will find no builder's

AN AUDIENCE AT AGRIPPA's.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
73
name mentioned more frequently than his. Various
aqueducts, such as the Aqua Julia and Virgo, the Pan-
theon, and countless other architectural works arose
under his auspices. In his will he bequeathed to the
people his gardens and the thermae which bore his
name, and Octavius, his principal heir, and whose
most trustworthy confidant, counsellor, and general
Agrippa had been, gave to the citizens of Rome,
in honor of his memory, a hundred denarii per
man.
In this picture the entrance to the house of this
true noble (perhaps the palace of Antonius, presented
by Octavius to his friend, and which was afterwards
burned) faces the spectator. A magnificent wide stair-
case of costly marble leads to the spacious, open, pil-
lared peristyle. The architecture is grand and stately,
worthy of Agrippa. On the plain pedestal at the foot
of the steps stands a lofty statue, not the one of
Agrippa himself, erected to him by the city of Athens
on the Acropolis, but that of the only man he knew
how to obey, Octavius Augustus. It had been
intended for the Pantheon, but the emperor had for-
74
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
bidden that it should be placed there, so one of Julius
Caesar had been substituted. At the foot of this
statue stands a group of supplicants: a noble-looking
man in the costume of an Oriental prince, who with
his wife or daughter has come to ask a boon of the
citizen before whom kings bowed. The daughter
holds in her hand a costly golden vessel, either to offer
it as a gift to their exalted patron or to pour a libation
before him as if lie were a god (an inscription in Myti-
lene calls him "god and preserver"). Their young
companion is calling to the prince, — who is pondering
over the words with which he is to touch the heart of
the omnipotent Roman, — that Agrippa is coming, and
in fact he appears on the staircase. Calmly and silently
he moves with quiet dignity down the steps, followed
at a respectful distance by a throng of clients. The
attention of every figure represented — and the specta-
tor's also — is centred upon the solitary man midway
down the staircase, who obeys only one^ even in the
presence of that one, who from his marble pedestal
silently towers above the whole scene. The throng of
patricians following Agrippa are expecting his sign, the
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
75
noble petitioners are waiting in breathless suspense.
Soon he will step upon the threshold where the tiger-
skin lies, and the prince will stop him to listen to his
business, his daughter will offer her gift and pay him
homage as a god, the clients will stand still as though
spellbound, until it has pleased the great man to grant
or refuse the boon, set his foot on the lowest step, and
enter the street.
How complete is the unity existing between the
numerous parts of this scene, how fully it expresses the
idea of the boundless power of a great citizen of
greater Rome! What a wealth of marvellous color
this picture contains, how varied and peculiar are the
tints, yet how harmoniously they blend together. In
no other painting have I seen stone painted in such
undefined hues, but nature has showed us the same or
similar ones, and the lighter shades of the robes and
the tiger-skin in the foreground contrast with them as
the sharper notes of well-tuned flutes stand forth from
the music of the softer instruments in the execution of
a fine symphony. Long treatises upon the influential
position of a man like Agrippa cannot teach what this
76
LOKEiNZ ALMA TADEMA.
picture silently, yet with indelible distinctness, impresses
upon the mind of every beholder.
In 1876 came the charming picture "Hide and
Seek," which I have had copied. It transports us to
the Roman Villa Albani. The long flight of steps that
leads through the garden to the summer palace is
entirely deserted. The noonday sun shines on the
bright marble, and even the lofty hert7ice on the terrace
afford scanty shade. Who would linger in the open
air now, who would not prefer to rest in the cool
shadow of the villa? But love and children at play
do not ask about the position of the sun, and the wild
little maid — perhaps the gardener's daughter—has
hidden behind the henna and is listening for the play-
mate who is seeking her and steals up so softly that
he will surprise the wilful elf with the thick locks of
hair and the saucy eyes. The boy has won in the
game of hide and seek; but will he not lose in the
more serious one with this fairy lassie?
Tadema's " Hope and Fear" shows us the figure
of an old man who resembles Priam and Nestor; his
"Nymphaum " is a beautiful woman who, not yet dis-

HIDE AM) SEEK.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
77
robed, lies stretched
on the costly mosaic
pavement, supported
by a cushion, and
gazes half-searchiug-
ly, half-dreamily, into
the warm water that
invites her to bathe.
The "balneatrix" is
bringing warm towels
to wipe the lady's
limbs, after she emerg-
es from the bath.^
Another exquisite
painting shows us
Roman women bath-
ing in the rushing
water of the thermae.
A great sensation
was made by "The
Sculptor's Model," a
picture of life-size,

THE "BALNEATRIX."
78
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
completed in 1877, which was suggested to the artist
by the excavation of the so-called Esquiline Venus
(discovered in 1874). The model in this work of art
is represented in the same attitude its sculptor gave it.
The warm flesh tones of the beautiful nude limbs form
an extremely effective contrast to the cool gray of the
bas-relief on the wall behind. The slender, girlish
figure is well rounded, but not voluptuous, and the
deeply-shadowed, delicately-cut features tell a whole
history. This young creature has come to the studio
reluctantly and, as she stands holding up her hair with
the left hand while the right rests on a palm-branch,
she is vexed that she is compelled to pose as a model
and the time seems long. Outside of art-circles this
superb picture would probably be less pleasing than
many other creations of the master, but the connoisseur
must hold it in specially high esteem for the marvellous
effects of light, in which it is so rich, and the exquisite
golden tones of its coloring. Bold as is the idea of
flooding even this beautiful flesh with such warm tones,
daintily and airily as the feathery fronds of the palm
leaves flicker over the grand, noble lines of the nude
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
79
body, this picture nevertheless produces a chaste im-
pression.
The purity of the artist's soul seems to imprint its
stamp on all his creations. Like the ancients he does
not shrink from nature, it only fascinates him and
tempts him to represent it for the sake of its beauty,
and to him the idea of beauty is associated with purity.
Besides, he has made the "moderation" of antiquity
his own and remains faithful to it, even when depicting
passionate movement, as in his " Pyrrhic Dance."
What a task it was to represent with brush and
colors this " mimic game of war," as Plato calls it, and
how he has accomplished it! The vase-pictures have
showed him the ranks of men in full armor with float-
ing plumes on the crests of their helmets; Plato taught
him how in this (afterwards also Roman) game, the
mock combatants advanced toward each other and,
with flexible movements and beautiful pantomine,
simulated retreat and assault as it was practised in
bloody battles against the foe. How exciting this
dance must have been to the spectators; how much
grace, power, and beauty it must have been possible to
8o
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
display, since it is well attested that Caligula, and even
Nero, bestowed citizenship upon the ephebe who had
danced the Pyrrhic {ttvpplXv) particularly well.
One would fain join the old men and youths under
the colonnade to witness this dance as Tadema repre-
sents it. What delicate tact it requires not to overstep
the limits of moderation and to make the spectacle of
men dancing with men, which is repugnant to our cus-
tom, not only endurable but beautiful, dignified, and at
the same time animated and vigorous. One step more,
and this dance of men would seem to us rude; one
less, and it might tempt the spectator to laugh. An
Egyptian King of the race of the Ptolemies, before
whom it had probably been badly performed, had it
danced by apes, and the caricature was successful
until a wag flung some nuts among the four-footed
dancers. A ludicrous idea for Paul Meyerheim! Does
not this anecdote show that the Pyrrhic, when not
admirably and decorously performed, might seem comi-
cal even to the Greeks? But I think they, too, would
have enjoyed Tadema's.
In the spring of 1878 the master again went to
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA. 81
Italy, and the picture he finished before his departure
seems to have been created under the influence of his
delight in the sunshine and radiant colors he expected
to find there. He called it "A loving Welcome," and
it glows with light, bright-hued flowers, and heartfelt
joy.
The spectator sees the tiny enclosed garden of a
Pompeian house, and nowhere has summer painted
poppies in brighter hues than in the bed before us,
more brilliant sunflowers have never opened than those
on yonder wall. The sun-dial points to the hour after
noon, and the sun is shining brightly and warmly on
the temples and larger buildings that tower above the
cheerful house. Great joy reigns there, for the little
daughter has returned and is clinging around the neck
of her mother, who has hurried forward in advance of
the father to greet her. But his turn will come. He
is an author, philosopher, or poet — the papyrus roll in
his hand shows it—and when tidings came that the
expected darling had arrived, he left his writing
almost as quickly as the mother her household duties.
How tender, how joyous is this greeting! Every mem-
6
82
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
ber of the household must share it. A maid-servant is
coming, bringing the youngest child to meet the return-
ing daughter. Even the dog wants to greet her, and
on the right, in the shade where the altar stands, the
water is pouring from the fountain as though it, too,
wished to ripple its "welcome." I fully agree with
Vosmaer, Rembrandt's biographer, when he says of
this picture: "The harmonious combination of light
and shade, the subtle choice of colors, the vigor and
glow of the tints, the extreme delicacy of the execution
of details, with the broad and flowing style, make
this painting to me one of the master's most perfect
works."
This it certainly is; but two years later he created a
similar one which I prefer; for paintings are like chil-
dren; to the possessor, one of their most beautiful
qualities is that they are /lis, and the writer of these
lines has the happiness of owning a picture which
Tadema called "The Parting Kiss." He knows it like
his own child, his favorite work, yet daily finds new
beauties. It, too, transports us to a Pompeian house.
A slave is holding the door open, and through it we
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
83
see the street, where the chariot is waiting, and beyond
the azure sea filling the gentle curve of the bay. In
the beautiful anteroom, in whose marble floor is set a
basin surrounded by rich mosaic ornaments, stands
the lovely young mother bending to her little half-
grown daughter, who lovingly stretches her arms to
her and joyously receives the farewell kiss. The
father's bust looks down from a high pedestal upon
this pleasant scene, so full of deep and warm affection.
It is no sorrowful parting, there is no long separation
in view; the chariot will probably only convey the
mother to her parents in Herculaneum or to the baths
at Baiae. But what lends this gem of a painting a
special value, is the circumstance that the beautiful
young mother with the violets in her hair is the artist's
wife, the little daughter is pretty Miss Anne Tadema,
and the bust on the pedestal represents the master.
All three are excellent likenesses, recognizable at the
first glance. Valuable as this painting is to the writer
as a work of art, it is the portraits that make it dear
to him.
In Rome (1878) Tadema commenced the "Four
84
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
Seasons," which have become very well known through
Blanchard's engravings.
"Spring" is thus represented: Through a meadow so
verdant and flowery that it rejoices the beholder's heart,,
a girl is walking, a lovely, modest, fresh little maiden,
herself a spring-blossom just unfolded, gazing con-
fusedly, unconscious of the magic of her own charms,
at the flower in her left hand. The first spring-tide
ray of love is just shining into her heart, and now the
flower must serve her as an oracle; or is she only won-
dering whether she can venture to give him the blossom
she has gathered?
"Summer!" A hot day! In the bath-room of an
aristocratic house — lined throughout with exquisitely
carved marble—a lovely, languid girl slowly fanning
herself with an ostrich-feather fan, reclines in the oval
basin sunk in the floor. The cool water ripples around
her beautiful limbs, and on its surface float the gay
petals of countless fragrant summer flowers. On the
bench above the tub the bather's beautiful sister is
sleeping in indolent ease.
"Autumn:" Flames are ascending from the altar of
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
sacrifice, flaring up to the lofty hernia with the bearded
Silenus, around whose head vine-leaves twine and
from whose temples hang bunches of grapes. A tall
amphora, containing the fresh juice of this autumn's
vintage, leans against the wall, a wine-jar stands in the
midst of the fire. Dionysius is to be thanked for the
best gift of autumn, and before the altar a young
Bacchante floats with swift step in a whirling dance.
In her right hand she holds a burning torch, in her left
an exquisitely-formed goblet. A garland adorns her
thick dark locks, and the panther-skin hangs in shining
hues across her arm and breast down on her simple
robe.
"Winter:" A family is seeking shelter from the wintry
cold at the foot of a huge column. The little portable
stove diffuses warmth and the steam of boiling food.
The plain meal has begun. The young mother, who
is sitting between the head of the family and a pretty
girl — perhaps her sister — lifts her little one gaily to
her blooming face, as if she wanted it to share her
enjoyment of the warm nook and waiting repast. A
pleasant scene of simple yet cosy winter comfort.
86
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
The painting "Fredegunde and Galsvintha" is a
representation from the cycle of the tragedy of an
estimable woman. Besides this picture of life-size, he
also finished in 1878 his smallest painting: "A Ques-
tion." This tiny work of art can be covered by a man's
two hands, yet in the great art exhibition at Munich, in
1879, no other exerted even an approximate power of
attraction. Whenever I approached, it was surrounded
by a dense throng, and what rarely occurs happened
in this case — both critics and public were equally
pleased.
A summer day, bright, clear, and warm as only the
happy South can bestow. The sea, a glittering ex-
panse of the purest blue, mirrors the cloudless sky
above it. On a white marble bench upon its shore
reclines a youth who is asking the fair-haired girl sit-
ting beside him with her lap full of roses, a question.
Who ever left this picture without feeling that he had
been permitted to cast a glance into a brighter, happier
world than ours? Who did not have the happy pair
on the marble bench impressed upon his memory?
This painting gave me no rest until I had found the
LORENZ ALMA TADJEMA.
87
answer to the question it puts to the spectator, and
written my idyl "A Question."
In the Art-Palace on green Isar's strand,
Before one picture long I kept my seat,
It held me spellbound by some magic band,
Nor, when my home I sought, could I forget
A year elapsed, came winter's frost and snow,
'Twas rarely now we saw the bright sun shine,
I plucked up courage and cried: "Be it so!"
Then southward wandered with those I call mine.
Like birds of passage built we there a nest
On a palm-shaded shore, all steeped in light,
Life was a holiday, enjoyed with zest
And grateful hearts, the while it winged its flight
Oft on the sea's wide, purplish-blue expanse,
With ever new delight I fixed my eyes,
Tadema's picture, now at every glance
Recalled to mind, a thousand times would rise.
Once a day dawned, glad as a bride's fair face,
Perfume, and light, and joy it did enfold,
Then — without search, flitted from out of space
Words for the tale that my friend's picture told.
88
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
This is exactly how I chanced to create my un-
pretending work "A Question."*
In 1879 appeared the pictures: "Down the
Stream," "The Garden-Altar," " Not at Home," "To
the temple of Ceres," and, in 1880, "Ave Caesar
Imperator."
In 1881 Tadema completed his " Sappho," a paint-
ing that excited the greatest admiration at the Berlin
Art Exhibition, not only on account of its exquisite re-
production of marble, but for the marvellous grouping
of the figures and the thoroughly antique repose in
which the whole is steeped. If my opinion is correct,
Tadema has this time taken his subject from an elegy
of the Hermesian in which are the lines:
"Surely thou know'st how, in the Lesbian land,
Alcseus oft the festal dances led,
Kindled by Sappho's charms, fierce glowed love's brand,
As, lauding her in song, the lute he played."
He, Alcseus, not Sappho, is the principal figure in
* Authorized English translation published by William S. Gotts-
berger, N. Y.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
89
the picture. "Lauding her in song," he sounds the
stringed instrument, but bending over the table and
the wreath lying on it, she listens with the utmost
pleasure. Beside her stands the little daughter she
mentions in one of her songs, and in the exedra sit the
friends and pupils of the "ninth muse," " the female
Homer," delighted to hear her extolled by this master.
Tadema's conception of the person of the great poetess
is noble and striking. This is not the love-sick woman
whom legend — probably associated with the comedy
written later — asserts killed herself because of unre-
quited love, but the poetess of whom Pinytus' epitaph
says:
"Earth covers naught save Sappho's dust and name,
But her wise song enjoys immortal fame."
Tadema shows us this wise songstress, yet we un-
derstand that she was capable of the ardent passion
which pervades some of the few poems that have been
preserved to our day. There is a superb contrast
between the white marble, the figures in the full glow
of light, and the dark blue sea in the background.
go LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
Unfortunately I have not seen " Cleopatra," " Read-
ing Horace Aloud," nor "Hadrian visiting a pottery
in Britain." The composition of the latter work is
said to be one of Tadema's greatest masterpieces; un-
doubtedly the details are exquisite, for he is an admirer
and thorough connoisseur of antique vessels, and has
frequently represented with both pencil and colors the
potter's art and its products. Does he wish thereby to
show his gratitude to the daughter of Dibutades, the
potter, who according to tradition invented his own art.
painting?
Tadema has also proved himself a portrait painter;
the likeness of his daughter Anne — which the reader
may enjoy — was an ornament of the last Berlin ex-
hibition.
Having already exceeded my allotted space, I am
prohibited from mentioning separately the portraits and
water-colors I know he has executed. The latter
would be well worthy of a minute description, for with
the exception of Menzel, whom Tadema deeply and
cordially admires, no living artist has surpassed him in
this mode of painting. His wife, who creates such

MISS ANNE TADEMA.
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
91
charming oil-paintings, is also a dainty water-col oris t
The scenes he painted for the tableaux given — partly
by his assistance and influence — in aid of the inun-
dated Rhenish provinces were masterpieces. Other
small pictures, sketched in leisure hours, have been
transformed into stage decorations by managers who
appreciated their charms.
The tree shall be known by its fruits; to give an
accurate portrait of the artist I have entered into a
minute description of his works. Whoever knows these,
knows the man himself. In my opinion the time for a
complete picture of Tadema's personality has not yet
arrived; he is still, thank God, among the ranks of the
living, and when in the future his last hour strikes, many
hands more skilled than mine will hasten to write his
eulogy. As for me, I can only say that I consider it a
special favor of fortune to be permitted to call this rare,
highly-educated, warm-hearted man, and genuine artist,
my friend. With so much genius, such a wealth of
knowledge, and such unusually wide renown, he has
retained a charming simplicity of character. Whoever
knows him, knows the source of the light and sunny
92
LORENZ ALMA TADEMA.
cheerfulness that irradiate many of his paintings; they
proceed from his pure, chaste soul, which is overflowing
with them. I shall never forget his face and the spark-
ling of his artist-eyes as one May day while we were
driving with our wives, amid sunlight, fresh spring
foliage, and singing birds, through the unpretending
Leipsic Rosenthal, he exclaimed: "Ebers, the world
is still beautiful!"

THE .
EBERS GALLERY
A COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS
ILLUSTRATING THE
ROMANCES OF GEORG EBERS
BY THE FOLLOWING ARTISTS
L. Alma-Tadema, W. A. Beer, W. Gentz, P. Grot-Johann,
H. Kaulbach, Ferd. Keller, O. Knille, F. Simm,
Laura Tadema, E. Tesciiendorff, P. Thumann.
TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS
WITH DESCRIPTIVE LETTER-PRESS
Printed from handsome large new type on plate-paper
Photographic Reproduction by Friedrich Bruckmann of Munich
In loose sheets, in cloth covered box, - - - - $22.50
One Vol., Folio, bound in half morocco, gilt edges,
by Alfred Matthews, 40 00
One Vol., Folio, superbly bound in full morocco extra,
by Alfred Matthews, - - 50.00
William S. Gottsberger, Publisher, New York.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS
Paul Thumann: Sappho and Bartja in the garden.
Franz Simm: Nitstis and Cambyses; their first meeting.
Ferdinand Keller: Nitetis in the Hanging Gatdens overlooking
the plain of Babylon.
Paul Grot-Johann: The sick Tachot on the balcony.
UARDA
Ferdinand Keller: Ameni and Bent-Anat; the high-priest refus-
ing her admission to the Temple.
Wilhelm Gentz: Uarda attended by the physician Nebsecht and
her grandmother.
Emil Teschendorff: Uarda and Rameri outside the paraschites'
hut.
HOMO SUM
Wilhelm Gentz: Miriam with the goats at the spring.
Lorenz Alma-Tadema: Paulus and Hennas throwing the discus.
Ferdinand Keller: Paulus and Sirona; the anchorite rescuing
her.
THE SISTERS
Emil Teschendorff: The Sisters; Klea discovering the violets in
Irene's hair.
Emil Teschendorff: Klea in the Temple.
THE EMPEROR
Ferdinand Keller: Selene thrown down by Argus.
Otto Knille: Hadrian and Antinous in the palace at Lohcias.
A QUESTION
Lorenz Alma-Tadema , Phaon and Xanthe on the marble bench.
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE
Hermann Kaulbach: Maria gazing on the portrait of her hus-
band's first wife.
Hermann Kaulbach: Georg and Maria meeting on the stairs.
Laura Tadema: Maria at the bedside of the sick Bessie.
A WORD, ONLY A WORD
Hermann Kaulbach: Ulrich and Ruth; the thunder-shower in
the woods.
W. A. Beer: The Flight; Dr. Costa and his family abandon their
home.
A GALLERY OF EBERS' HEROINES.
(EXTRACT FROM ARTICLE IN THE BOOK BUYER, CHRISTMAS, 1S85.)
"Only Gustav Freytag has before been illustrated on so
magnificent a scale, and Victor Scheffel's 'Ekkehard' has also
set some very skilful brushes in motion. But anything quite so
elaborate, and, at the same time, so artistically satisfactory, has,
we believe, never before been attempted. The Egyptian ro-
mances of Ebers, quite apart from their literary merit, are replete
with scenes of striking picturesqueness; and no more tempting
subjects for pictorial skill could be imagined than his archaeologi-
cal love-making, murders, and abductions, traced in bold relief
against a background of sphinxes and pyramids. There is a glow
and splendor of color in them all which is ravishing. With the
aid of these pictures, which are as beautiful as they are faithful in
archaeological detail, the civilization of ancient Egypt becomes as
vivid and intelligent to us as that of the Parisian boulevards.
"If there is any picture in the collection which rises above
the high average level of excellence, it is Ferdinand Keller's
* Nitetis "in the Hanging Garden overlooking the Plains of
Babylon.' We have never seen the Egyptian type of woman-
hood so vividly realized, so exquisitely refined, yet so distinctly
individual. One becomes conscious of a certain tenderness for
the mummies in the British Museum, and a desire for their
acquaintance, after having gazed for a while at this lovely daugh-
ter of the Pharaohs. Wasn't Moses rather prejudiced in the view
he took of the Egyptians, and wouldn't it be well to read Ebers
before giving our sympathies so unqualifiedly to the Hebrews in
the conflict? Reflections of this sort urge themselves upon us as
we contemplate the sweet humanity with which artists like Keller,
Thumann, Gentz, and Teschenclorff have invested their types of
Egyptian womanhood. Teschendorff is more conventional than
Keller, more modern, and less Oriental. His Uarda is German,
though, in her interview with the prince, so lovely that her
nationality becomes a matter of no consequence. Alma-Tadema's
two pictures, which are here photographically reproduced, deal
with the Greek scenes with which Ebers' romances are abun-
dantly intersprinkled. Prof. Paul Thumann hovers upon the
borderland of Greek and Oriental civilization in his 'Sappho and
Bartja,' in which, by the way, the drawing is marvellously skilful.
The sweep of the girl's figure is graceful, animated, and beauti-
fully expressive."—II. 77. Boyesen.
THE ROMANCES
0 F
GEORG EBERS
COMPRISING:
AK EGYPTIAN PRINCESS,
TWO VOLS.
SEP APIS,
ONE VOL.
UARD A,
TWO VOLS.
THE SISTERS,
ONE VOL.
THE EMPEROR,
TWO VOLS.
HOMO SUM,
ONE VOL.
A QUESTION,
ONE VOL.
A WORD, ONLY A WORD,
ONE VOL.
THE BURGOMASTER'S WIFE,
ONE VOL.
TWELVE VOLUMES, uniform, in the following colors:
Brown, Olive, Blue, Green, and Red,
Cloth, in box, ___ $9.30
TWELVE VOLUMES,
Half Calf Extra, (Matthew's binding), in neat case, - $24.00
A QUESTION. The idyl of a picture, by
his friend Alma Tadema, related by Greorg
Ebers, from the German, by Mary J. Safford.
Authorized edition, in one vol.. with frontispiece.
"Georg Kbers' little Sicilian love idyl, called * A
Question,' is a very bijou, a rose-bud of a book. The
perfume of blushing roses that hang from sunny garden
walls, and the refreshing chill of summer dew, give the
like pleasure that this story gives. It has the purity of
the severest classicism, with just a tinge of delicate
CrOthic glow and passion — as, in Sicily, it is said snow
sometimes falls on full-blown roses. It is delightfully
pagan, and successfully Greek, having the vraisemblance
of Becker's ' Charicles,' without a particle of its grossness.
The scene of the tale is the villa of a wealthy Syracusan,
and 'the question' to be settled is: Shall the lovely
Xanthe marry her childhood's playmate, Phaon, whom
she loves, or shall she take Leonax, of Messina. The
old shrew housekeeper, Semestre, favors Leonax, and
Xanthe wavers a little in her choice, because she is told
that Phaon has been spending his nights in rioting writh
flute-women. She finds him asleep on a marble bench
in the garden, sits by his head with her gathered roses,
and, when he awakes, reproaches him tearfully with his
wantonness. But when she discovers that his sleepless
nights have been passed up in her father's olive-groves, in
order that he might defend them from thieves during the
father's temporary illness, she, of course, is melted into
tender forgiveness, and the two are betrothed and after-
wards happily married.
"One is in doubt whether Ebers wrote this little
book for children or not. At any rate, it is one of those
occasional volumes that please all ages equally well;
just as a hundred human beings, each with a different eye,
would alike admire a cluster of ripe currants, a spray of
apple-blossoms, or the delicate green of a curling wave."
—The American, Philadelphia, May 28, 1881.
THE AMAZOTNT. — An Art-Novel, by Carl Vosmaer,
from the Dutch by E. J. Irving, with frontispiece by Alma
Tadema, R. A., and preface by Georg Ebers. In one vol
Paper, 40 els. Cloth, 75 cts.
"Among the poets who never overstep the limits of probability
and yet aspire to realize the ideal, in whose works we breathe a
purer air, who have power to enthral and exalt the reader's soul,
to stimulate and enrich his mind, we must number the Nether-
lander Vosmaer.
"The Novel 4 Amazon,' which attracted great and just attention
in the author's fatherland, has been translated into our tongue at
my special request. In Vosmaer we find no appalling incident,
no monstrous or morbid psychology, neither is the worst side of
human nature portrayed in glaring colors. The reader is afforded
ample opportunity of delighting himself with delicate pictures of
the inner life and spiritual conflicts of healthy-minded men and
women. In this book a profound student of ancient as well as
modern art conducts us from Paestum to Naples, thence to Rome,
making us participators in the highest and greatest the Eternal
City can offer to the soul of man.
"Vosmaer is a poet by the grace of God, as he has proved by
poems both grave and gay; by his translation of the Iliad into
Dutch hexameters, and by his lovely epos 'Nanno,' His numer-
ous essays on esthetics, and more especially his famous 'Life of
Rembrandt,' have secured him an honorable place among the art-
historians of our day. As Deputy Recorder of the High Court
of Justice he has, during the best years of his life (he was born
March 20, 1826^, enjoyed extensive opportunities of acquiring a
thorough insight into the social life of the present, and the laby-
rinths of the human soul. That 'The Amazon,' perhaps the ma-
tures!: work of this author, should—like Vosmaer's other writings—
be totally unknown outside Holland, is owing solely to the circum-
stance that most of his works are written in his mother-tongue, and
are therefore accessible only to a very small circle of readers.
"It is a painful thing for a poet to have to write in a language
restricted to a small area; and it is the bounden duty of the lover
of literature to bring what is excellent in the literature of other
lands within the reach of his own countrymen. Among these
excellent works Vosmaer's 'Amazon' must unquestionably be
reckoned. It introduces us to those whom we cannot fail to
consider an acquisition to our circle of acquaintances. It permits
us to be present at conversations which — and not least when they
provoke dissent — stimulate our minds to reflection. No one who
listens to them can depart without having gained something; for
Vosmaer's novel is rich in subtle observations and shrewd re-
marks, in profound thoughts and beautifully-conceived situations."
Extract from Georg Ebers"1 Preface to the German Edition.
William S. Gottsberger s Publications.
ANTON CIULIO BARRILI.
A Whimsical Wooing, from the
Italian by Clara Bell, one vol.
paper, 25*cts.f cloth, 50 cts.
Tlie Devil's Portrait, from the
Italian by Evelyn Wodehouse,
one vol. paper, 40 cts., cloth,
75 cts.
Tlie Eleventh Command-
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Bell, one vol. paper, 50 cts.,
cloth, 90 cts.
LA MARCHESA COLOMBI.
Tlie Wane of an Ideal, from
the Italian by Clara Bell, one
vol. paper, 50 cts., cloth, 90 cts.
Mme SOPHIE COTTIN.
Matilda, Princess of England,
from the French by Jennie W.
Raum, two vols, paper, $1.00,
cloth, $1.75 per set.
Mme AUGUSTUS CRAVEN.
Eliane, from the French by Lady
Georgiana Fullerton, one vol.
paper, 50 cts., cloth, 90 cts.
FELIX DAHN.
ft'elicitas, from the German by
Mary J. Saftord, one vol. paper,
50 cts., cloth, 90 cts.
GEORQ EBERS.
An Egyptian Princess, From
the German by Eleanor Grove;
authorized edition, revised, cor-
rected, and enlarged from the
latest German edition, two vols,
paper, 80 cts., cloth. $1.50 per
set.
A Question, from the German by
Mary J. Safford; authorized edi-
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cloth, 75 cts.
CEORC EBERS. Continued.
A Word, Only a Word, from the
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Homo Sum, from the German by
Clara Bell; authorized edition,
one vol. paper, 40 cts., cloth,
75 cts.
Serapis, from the German by Clara
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75 cts.
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Lorenz Alma Tadema
HIS LIFE AND WORKS
BY
GEORG EBERS
Author of "Uarda," etc.
From the German by MARY J. SAFFORD
WITH THIRTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
II MURRAY STREET
1886
A METHOD FOR THE
IDIOMATIC STUDY OF GERMAN
BY
OTTO KUPHAL, Ph. D.
PART ONE—
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Large 121110. — 536 pages. Price $2.25.
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