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signed L. Alma Tadema (lower left)

oil on panel

PROVENANCE

Commissioned by Vanderdoncks, Brussels, 1865
Henry Mason, London, by 1882
Mrs. F. H. Glenn-Allen
Sale, Sotheby's, London, June 4, 1969, lot 70
Mr. Francis
Charles Jerdein, London
Allen Funt, New York
Sale, Sotheby's, Belgravia, November 6, 1973, lot 4
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
EXHIBITED

London, International Exhibition, 1871, no. 42
The Hague, Levende Meesters, 1872, no. 328
London, Grosvenor Gallery, The Works of L. Alma-Tadema, Winter Exposition, 1882, no. 80
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Victorians in Togas, 1973, no. 4

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Frederick G. Stephens, Academy Notes, London, 1884, p. 32
C. Vosmaer, Alma-Tadema Catalogue Raisonné, unpublished manuscript, c.1885, no. 39
R. Dircks, The Later Works from the Collection of Allen Funt, exh. cat., 1973, p. 10, illustrated
Vern Swanson, Sir Alma-Tadema, Ash & Grant, London 1977, pp. 37, 135, illustrated
Christopher Wood, Olympian Dreamers, London, 1983, pp. 110-11, illustrated
Vern Swanson, The Biography and Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Garton & Co., London, 1990, no. 67, pp. 136-7, 298, illustrated
R. J. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, London, 2001, p. 30

CATALOGUE NOTE

Alma-Tadema painted this masterful oil, The Conversation, for Messrs. Vanderdoncks of Brussels. It was painted to replace the oil, Leaving Church in the Fifteenth Century (Swanson, no. 59, 1864) which was first committed to Vanderdoncks, but which M. Gambart had purchased on his studio visit in 1864. The present painting depicts two patrician Roman citizens engaged in something more than just a "chat." They are fervently discussing the merits of a text laid on the table beside a round leather box full of scrolls. The painting was the precursor to many in which the artist built an entire picture around inconsequential and anecdotal episodes.

The silver statue on the carved marble table was adapted from the Venus of Arles now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples. It demonstrated, according to Christopher Wood, '[A] pedantic love of ornament, with every object based, where possible on a direct archaeological precedent.' (p. 110). It should be rememberd however, that the surprisingly sophisticated The Conversation was only Alma-Tadema's third attempt at painting a Greco-Roman subject. As such, its pictorial literalism was to be expected. In fact throughout his long career, Tadema made archaeological reconstruction one of the raison d'êtres of his oeuvre.

The art critic, Frederick W. Stephens, wrote about Tadema's painting in 1884, "For the first time classical genre subjects were represented with verisimilitude, learning and technical mastery." The popularity of archaeologically accurate pictures was spurred on by the recent involvement of France and Italy in excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Such scholarly research prompted painters of Classical themes to widen their knowledge of Roman interiors, dress and implements. Alma-Tadema was an early and enthusiastic convert to this trend, and, as much as anyone else, brought depictions of antiquity from an archaeological science to a high art.

Sir Edmund Gosse states that the deep rich tonality of Tadema's paintings from this period was the result of the artist redecorating his new studio at 51 rue de Palais in Brussels in 1865. He now surrounded himself with resonant Pompeian-red and Roman wall-motifs. He attached great importance to the effect of light and color upon his work:

"When I found that the black Pompeian decorations of my early Antwerp studio made me paint my pictures too heavy, I had my next studio painted red. There they got too hot.... The influence was such that you can classify my pictures according to the influence produced upon them by the surroundings."

The Conversation successfully shows a deep, rich, warm tonality and color schemes reminiscent of Pompeii fresco painting.

This painting once belonged to Allen Funt, the creator of Candid Camera, one of the most popular television shows in America in the 1960s. Funt assembled the most comprehensive collection of paintings by Alma-Tadema in the 20th century, and in 1973, it was the subject of a thematic exhibition, Victorians in Togas, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This, in itself, was a landmark event as most important American Museums have not regularly focused on Victorian painting.

We would like to thank Vern Swanson, Director of the Springville Museum of Art, Utah, for providing this catalogue note.