Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1836 - 1912
Welcome Footsteps (The Well-Known Footsteps), c. November 1883
Oil on panel
16 by 21¾ in.; 40.6 by 55.2 cm
Private collection
Sold for 252,000 USD in January 2023
Welcome Footsteps, also known as Well-Known Footsteps, was painted in November 1883 and debuted the following month at the inaugural exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Oil Colour, founded in London the previous year. The present painting relates to a later painting, A Forgone Conclusion, commissioned by Sir Henry Tate (1819-1899), founder of the Tate Gallery (See Below) where it remains, as a wedding present for his second wife, Amy Hislop (1850-1919). More on this painting
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1836–1912
A Foregone Conclusion, c. 1885
Oil paint on wood
311 × 229 mm
TATE BRITAIN
Set in the time of the early Roman Empire, Alma-Tadema depicts a man bringing an engagement ring to his girlfriend in the hope that she will become his fiancée. The expectant look of the lady and her attendant holding hands at the top of the stairs reveals that the result of his proposal will be ‘a foregone conclusion’. Barrow has examined many of Alma-Tadema’s courtship scenes in the light of Roman law and practice. During this period women of high birth often married while they were young for political alliance and social advantage. ‘Love interests’, Barrow remarked, ‘developed through the illicit acquisition of lovers after marriage’ (Barrow, p.102). It is unlikely, however, that Henry Tate, a self-made businessman, would have taken the painting to mean anything other than that which was clearly intended, a compliment to his wife’s affection. Amy Hislop, who was 31 years his junior, was married to Tate in 1885, the year of this painting. More on this painting
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter of special British denizenship.
Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky.
Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century English art. More on Lawrence Alma-Tadema
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