Lawrence Alma-Tadema - In the Temple

signed and dated l.r.: L Alma Tadema 71
oil on panel
89.5 by 52cm.: 35¼ by 20½in.
ESTIMATE 200,000 - 300,000 GBP

Commissioned by Ernest Gambart in 1871

Christopher Forbes, Victorians in Togas: Paintings by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema from the Collection of Allen Funt, 1973, illus. p.17;
Vern G. Swanson, Alma-Tadema, The Painter of the Victorian Vision of the Ancient World, 1977, p.136;
Vern G. Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1990, no.132, p.162, illus. p.333

'With ever increasing confidence, by the 1870s Alma-Tadema was painting some of his most complex pictures, brimming with archaeological paraphernalia.' (Russell Ash, Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, 1989, p.24)

The setting is the interior of a Pompeian temple, where a young priestess bedecked in flowers has been distracted from the festivities taking place in the sunlit courtyard where a porphyry lion fountains water into a lily pond. She stops, the cymbals in her hands frozen and silent as she gazes at the marble altar, or cippus and the procession behind her is forgotten briefly. The marble Satyr in the Uffizzi, Florence whilst the brazier and altar were based upon photographs of relics at the Museo Archaelogico in Naples. The votive painting hung on the elaborately decorated
pillar is based on a Pompeian fresco depicting the Triumph of Amphitrite.

In the Temple demonstrates Tadema's fresher and more colourful approach to painting in the 1870s. The pose of the female figure was suggested by that of the principal priestess in another depiction of temple-life The Vintage Festival of 1870 (Hamburger Kunstalle). This was one of the last pictures completed by Tadema before he moved to London and it is likely that Tadema's agent Ernest Gambart commissioned In the Temple as a more condensed version of the 1870 picture to be sold to Tadema's emerging London clientele.

In the Temple was commissioned by Ernest Gambart; 'The most influential art dealer of the last century' (Vern Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1990, p.29.) Gambart had purchased his first pictures from Tadema in 1864 marking the beginning of a relationship that
launched the artist's career and assured his financial success. In 1871 Tadema painted ten works, all commissioned by Gambart. 1871 was a pivotal year for Tadema; he abandoned Brussels for life in London prompted by the onset of the Franco-Prussian war and married for the second time.

The first private owner of In the Temple was the prosperous Scottish merchant John Graham, founder of W.& J. Graham &Co., which specialised in cotton spinning, imported dry goods from India and traded port wine by which it is still known today. He was the uncle of the better-known William Graham the avid collector of Italian Old Masters and patron of Burne-Jones and of Rossetti. John Graham himself owned important works by the Pre-Raphaelites, including examples by Rossetti and Holman Hunt and Millais' Sir Isumbras at the Ford (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port
Sunlight) although his great passion was for work by Turner, Linnell, Landseer, Gainsborough and Reynolds.

George Redford described John Graham as 'a very well-known figure at Christie's for many years, a spare, contented-looking man in black frock coat and necktie, wearing a soft felt hat, always ready with his invitation, "Ye are welcome to Skelmorlie, happy to show ye "the peectures".'

When the picture was exhibited at Tadema's first major retrospective held at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1882 it had passed into the collection of Sir Angus Holden, 1st Baron Holden (1833-1912) a former mayor of Bradford. In more recent times the painting was owned by Allen Funt (1914-1999) the American television producer and director (best known for his popular television show, Smile, You're on Candid Camera) and was among the thirty-five works by Tadema from his collection that formed the landmark sale at Sotheby's Belgravia in 1973.