Editing Lawrence Alma-Tadema (section)

===Victorian painter===
[[File:The Roses of Heliogabalus.jpg|thumb|right|''[[The Roses of Heliogabalus]]'' (1888), oil on canvas, 132.1 × 213.7&nbsp;cm, private collection. As it was painted during the winter, Tadema arranged to have roses sent weekly from the [[French Riviera]] for four months to ensure the accuracy of each [[petal]].]]
[[File:Alma-Tadema Unconscious Rivals 1893.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Unconscious Rivals]]'' (1893), oil on panel, 45 × 63&nbsp;cm, [[Bristol]] City Museum and Art Gallery. Alma-Tadema's female figures have a slightly bored pleasure-seeking attitude, as if they were pampered courtesans.<ref name = "Swanson 52">Swanson, ''Alma-Tadema'', p. 52</ref> There is little action in Alma-Tadema's paintings. The composition is balanced by the flowers in bloom.]]

After his arrival in England, where he was to spend the rest of his life, Alma-Tadema's career was one of continued success. He became one of the most famous and highly paid artists of his time, acknowledged and rewarded. By 1871 he had met and befriended most of the major [[Pre-Raphaelite]] painters and it was in part due to their influence that the artist brightened his palette, varied his hues, and lightened his brushwork.

In 1872 Alma-Tadema organised his paintings into an identification system by including an opus number under his signature and assigning his earlier pictures numbers as well. ''Portrait of my sister, Artje'', painted in 1851, is numbered opus I, while two months before his death he completed ''Preparations in the Coliseum'', opus CCCCVIII. Such a system made it more difficult for fakes to be passed off as originals.<ref name = " Barrow 62">Barrow, '' Lawrence Alma-Tadema'', p. 62</ref>

In 1873 [[Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]] [[Privy Council of the United Kingdom|in Council]] by [[letters patent]] made Alma-Tadema and his wife what are still up to the present time the last British [[Denization|denizens]] created (the legal process has theoretically not yet been abolished in the United Kingdom), with some limited special rights otherwise only accorded to and enjoyed by British subjects (that is, those would now be called British citizens). The previous year he and his wife made a journey on the continent that lasted five and a half months and took them through Brussels, Germany, and Italy. In Italy Alma-Tadema was able to take in the ancient ruins again; this time he purchased several photographs, mostly of the ruins, which began his immense collection of archival material used in the completion of future paintings. In January 1876, he rented a studio in Rome. The family returned to London in April, visiting the [[Paris Salon]] on their way back. In London he regularly met with fellow-artist [[Emil Fuchs (artist)|Emil Fuchs]].<ref name="Ronald Alley 1981" >[http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/emil-fuchs-1130 Quoted on Tate website:] Ronald Alley, ''Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists'', Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.227–8</ref><ref name="ThomasCool" >{{cite web|url=http://thomascool.eu/Painting/TC1851-EmilFuchs.html|title=Emil Fuchs 1866–1929}}</ref>

Among the most important of his pictures during this period was ''An Audience at Agrippa's'' (1876). When an admirer of the painting offered to pay a substantial sum for a painting with a similar subject, Alma-Tadema simply turned the emperor around to show him leaving, in ''After the Audience''. On 19 June 1879, Alma-Tadema was made a [[Royal Academy of Arts|Royal Academician]]. Three years later, a major retrospective of his entire oeuvre was organised at the [[Grosvenor Gallery]] in London, including 185 of his pictures.

In 1883 he returned to Rome and Pompeii, where further excavations had taken place since his last visit. He spent a significant amount of time studying the site, going there daily. These excursions gave him an ample source of subject matter as he began to further his knowledge of daily Roman life. At times, however, he integrated so many objects into his paintings that some said they resembled museum catalogues.

One of his most famous paintings is ''[[The Roses of Heliogabalus]]'' (1888) – based on an episode from the life of the debauched [[Roman emperor]] [[Elagabalus]] (Heliogabalus), the painting depicts the emperor suffocating his guests at an orgy under a cascade of rose [[petal]]s. The blossoms depicted were sent weekly to the artist's London studio from the French Riviera for four months during the winter of 1887–1888.

[[File:The_Bible_and_its_story.._%281908%29_%2814760891504%29.jpg|thumb|right|One of Alma-Tadema's contributions to [[The Bible and Its Story, Taught By One Thousand Picture Lessons]] (1910), depicting [[Joseph (Genesis)|Josephs's]] return to his people.]]
Among Alma-Tadema's works of this period are: ''An Earthly Paradise'' (1891), ''Unconscious Rivals'' (1893) ''[[Spring (Alma-Tadema painting)|Spring]]'' (1894), ''The Coliseum'' (1896) and ''The Baths of Caracalla'' (1899). Although Alma-Tadema's fame rests on his paintings set in antiquity, he also painted portraits, landscapes and watercolours, and made some [[etching]]s himself. (Many more were made of his paintings by others).