In the 1960s, the reputation of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was effectively dead.
The Modernists had won. The art establishment dismissed Victorian painting as "sentimental kitsch." Museums were taking his massive canvases down and unceremoniously shoving them into damp basements.
At this low point in history, a hero emerged. The savior of the genre was an unlikely figure, and the Allen Funt Alma Tadema connection remains one of the strangest stories in art history.
He was Allen Funt, the smiling, prank-playing host of the hit TV show "Candid Camera."
The Unlikely Collector
Allen Funt was famous for catching people in unguarded, embarrassing moments of reality. He made his fortune by revealing the clumsy, funny truth of human nature.
Yet, in his private life, he became obsessed with the most carefully scripted, unrealistic art in history.
The obsession began by accidental discovery. In the early 1960s, Funt wandered into a London gallery and saw a painting. It was love at first sight, and the Allen Funt Alma Tadema obsession was born. He was thunderstruck by the technical perfection.
He asked the price. The dealer, likely suppressing a smirk, named a figure that was shockingly low. Funt bought it on the spot.
The Buying Spree
The Buying Spree: A Hands-On Hunt
Allen Funt wasn't a passive collector. The Allen Funt Alma Tadema crusade was a personal mission. He hunted.
He would personally fly to London and walk into the stuffy galleries of Bond Street or the dusty antique shops of Kensington. He developed a reputation. Dealers, who were embarrassed to display "unfashionable" Victorian art, would see him coming and rush to the back rooms to drag out their hidden stock.
They often treated him like a naive American tourist with more money than taste. They were happy to unload these "white elephants"—massive canvases that no modern buyer wanted—for pennies.
Allen Funt enjoyed the irony. He knew they were laughing at him as he wrote the checks, but he also knew he was walking out with masterpieces. He famously tracked down paintings that were being sold for the value of their frames, rescuing works that were minutes away from being stripped or destroyed.
His accountant was horrified. He reportedly told Allen Funt, "Allen, you are throwing your money away. These frames are worth more than the paintings. Why are you buying this junk?"
Allen Funt ignored him. He saw something the critics missed. "I think he is the greatest painter who ever lived," he said. Perhaps, as a man who studied human behavior through a hidden lens, he appreciated Alma-Tadema's ability to capture the "candid" moments of ancient life—a gossip on a bench, a shared glance, a bored stare.
Inside the Allen Funt Alma Tadema Collection
At the height of his collecting, Allen Funt owned 35 of the artist's finest works. It was arguably the greatest collection of Victorian art ever assembled by a single individual. It included works that define the artist's career:
- The Roses of Heliogabalus: The infamous scene of the Emperor smothering his guests in petals. Funt famously hung this massive canvas in his living room.
- Spring: The 7-foot tall depiction of the Roman festival procession.
- The Finding of Moses: The painting commissioned by the Aswan Dam engineer, which later broke the $35 million record.
- A Coign of Vantage: The heavy marble balcony scene that inspired Hollywood.
- The Baths of Caracalla (Thermae Antoninianae): A massive architectural tour-de-force showing the scale of Rome.
- Silver Favourites: Three women feeding fish in a marble pool, a masterpiece of water reflection.
- Unconscious Rivals: Two women waiting for a lover, oblivious to their competition.
- Comparing Notes: Two women chatting on a marble bench (Funt loved the casual humanity of this).
He lived inside a 360-degree panorama of ancient Rome.
The Controversy at The Met
Funt didn't just hoard the paintings; he wanted the world to see them. In March 1973, he convinced The Metropolitan Museum of Art to host the Allen Funt Alma Tadema exhibition.
The show, titled "Victorians in Togas," was a lightning rod for controversy. The Modernist critics, who believed in Abstract Expressionism, were appalled.
John Canaday, the powerful critic for The New York Times, savaged the show. He wrote that the exhibition was "for people who want to be amused by the bad taste of their grandfathers." He dismissed the painstakingly painted marble as empty trickery.
But the public didn't read the reviews; they looked at the art. The lines stretched down Fifth Avenue. Visitors were mesmerized by the technique that Modernism had abandoned—the way the light hit the water, the texture of the silk, the humanity of the figures. They didn't see "bad taste"; they saw a lost world brought to life.
It was the first crack in the ice of Modernism. It proved that despite what the critics said, people still craved beauty.
The Betrayal and The Sale
The story has a tragic twist. Just as the exhibition was proving him right, Funt discovered a devastating truth: his accountant—the very man who had mocked the collection—had embezzled millions of dollars from him.
Funt was ruined. To avoid bankruptcy, he had to liquidate his assets. The most valuable thing he owned was not his TV show, but the collection he had lovingly built piece by piece.
He was heartbroken. He viewed the auction not as a sale, but as a funeral. He feared the critics were right, that he would get pennies on the dollar.
The Auction That Changed History
On November 6, 1973, the famous Allen Funt Alma Tadema collection went under the hammer at Sotheby's Belgravia.
The atmosphere was tense. But as the first lot came up, something shifted. The room was packed. People had not come to mock; they had come to buy.
The sale was a sensation. Prices shattered expectations, proving Funt's investment genius:
- The Finding of Moses sold for £30,000. Funt had purchased it years earlier for mere thousands. (In 2010, this same painting would sell for $35.9 million).
- The Roses of Heliogabalus sparked a bidding war, selling for £28,000, a record for the artist at the time.
- Spring wasn't even in the auction; Funt had sold it privately to the J. Paul Getty Museum a year earlier for $55,000 (having bought it for roughly $3,000).
The total sale realized over £500,000 in one night. It revitalized the entire market for Victorian art, turning "junk" into gold.
The Last Laugh
Allen Funt died in 1999, missing the final explosion of the market in 2010. But he died knowing he was right.
The man who made his career pranking the public had played the ultimate joke on the art establishment. He had seen genius where they saw trash. He had saved the legacy of Lawrence Alma-Tadema from oblivion. The story of Allen Funt, Alma Tadema, and the "Candid Camera" fortune remains the greatest plot twist in art history.
