To understand a man, you must look at his friends. And if you looked at the friends of the artist Alma Tadema, you would see the entire cultural history of the Victorian age staring back at you.
When Lawrence arrived in London in 1870, he could have been an outsider. He was Dutch. He spoke with a funny accent (he pronounced "society" as "so-sigh-et-ee"). He was refugee from a war.
But he had a secret weapon: his personality.
Unlike the brooding, solitary stereotype of an artist, the artist Alma Tadema was a creature of joy. He was loud. He told bad jokes. He loved children (he was famous for getting down on the floor to play with them, even when he was a knight). This warmth made him a magnet.
The Pre-Raphaelite Connection
His entry into the London art world came through the Pre-Raphaelites.
He became close friends with Ford Madox Brown, the godfather of the movement. In fact, it was at Brown’s house that he met his wife, Laura. Through Brown, he connected with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.
It is interesting to compare them. The Pre-Raphaelites were often painting medieval dreams, full of Arthurian knights and mystical women. The artist Alma Tadema was painting Roman reality, full of sunlight and marble. But they shared a common language: a devotion to beauty and a rejection of the ugly industrial world outside their windows.
The Twin Pillars: Leighton and Tadema
But his true peer was Frederic Leighton.
Leighton was the President of the Royal Academy. He was elegant, aloof, and aristocratic—the exact opposite of the boisterous Dutchman. Yet they were the Twin Kings of High Victorian Art.
They both built palace-studios (Leighton House in Kensington is the only rival to Casa Tadema). They both painted classical subjects. They both died as revered establishment figures. Their friendship defined the era.
The Party of the Century
The social hub of this artistic universe was Casa Tadema at 44 Grove End Road.
The artist Alma Tadema held court. His "Tuesday Evening" dinners were legendary. Space was tight, so the rule was simple: "Men must wear evening dress, but no crushed shirts."
Imagine the scene at one of these dinners.
Sitting on a marble bench is the young John Singer Sargent. At the piano, the great Polish composer Ignacy Paderewski is improvising a sonata. In the corner, the actress Ellen Terry is discussing her latest role in Shakespeare. A young Winston Churchill might be listening to the conversation. Tchaikovsky might be passing through on a visit to London.
It was a melting pot of genius. The artist Alma Tadema loved the theater almost as much as painting, often designing costumes and sets for his actor friends (like Henry Irving). His house was a stage, and all of London was his cast.
The American Fuel
But a golden circle needs gold to keep spinning. And for the artist Alma Tadema, that gold came from America.
While British critics sometimes scoffed at his "marble painting," the newly wealthy American industrialists couldn't get enough of it. Men like Henry Marquand and William Vanderbilt saw in his paintings a mirror of their own empires.
They paid astronomical sums—equivalent to millions today—for his work. This American money flowed into London, financing the roses, the parties, and the lifestyle that kept the circle alive.
The End of the Circle
This circle was a fragile ecosystem. It relied on peace, prosperity, and a shared belief that Art was Important.
When World War I arrived in 1914, it shattered the windows. The young men who might have attended Tadema's parties died in the trenches. The optimism of the Victorian age was decapitated.
The world no longer wanted the beautiful, languid dreams of the artist Alma Tadema. They wanted the hard, fractured truth of modernism.
But for a few golden decades, London was the capital of art, and Lawrence was its jovial king. To look at his work is to see the reflection of these friendships—the confidence, the luxury, and the shared joy of a group of people who believed, if only for a moment, that beauty could save the world.
