In 1881, Lawrence Alma-Tadema painted a picture that contains almost nothing.
There are no great processions, no emperors, no crowds of thousands. There is just a small marble room, a bear-skin rug, and a single woman lying down.
The painting is called The Tepidarium. In Roman architecture, this was the "warm room" of the bathhouse—a heated sanctuary where bathers would rest and apply oils before braving the intense heat of the Caldarium.
Despite its deceptively simple setting, it became one of the most controversial and commercially significant images of the 19th century.
The Science of Texture
Critics often dismiss Alma-Tadema’s nudes as mere titillation. But to look at The Tepidarium with an artist's eye is to see a rigorous scientific experiment.
The painting is a challenge. Alma-Tadema set out to paint five distinct physical sensations in a single frame. He wanted the viewer not just to see the image, but to feel it.
- The Marble (Cold): The bench she lies on is painted with a hard, glassy finish. You can almost feel the chill radiating from the stone, forcing the viewer to imagine the temperature of the room.
- The Skin (Warm): The woman has just come from the bath. Her skin is flushed and radiant, a perfect, living contrast to the cold stone.
- The Rug (Rough): Beneath her is a dark, coarse bear-skin rug. Every hair is painted individually. The scratchy texture of the fur emphasizes the velvet softness of the skin.
- The Feather (Soft): In her hand, she holds a fan of ostrich feathers. It is painted with a wispy, ethereal lightness that defies the heavy oil paint.
It is a symphony of textures: Soft, Hard, Warm, Cold, Rough.
The Dangerous Prop: The Strigil
In her right hand, the woman holds a curious, curved metal instrument. This is a strigil.
To the Victorian public, this was a mysterious, exotic object. In ancient Rome, bathers did not use soap; they covered their bodies in olive oil and then used a strigil to scrape the oil, sweat, and dirt from their skin.
By placing this tool in her hand, Alma-Tadema adds a layer of tactile sensuality to the scene. She is not just lying there; she is preparing for—or resting from—the act of scraping warm oil from her naked body.
The strigil itself was not a prop from a costume shop. It was a genuine Roman artifact from Alma-Tadema’s personal collection. He prized it highly, often showing it to visitors as physical proof of his connection to the ancients.
The Soap King and the Scandal
The painting’s life took a bizarre turn when it caught the eye of Thomas J. Barratt.
Barratt was the chairman of A. & F. Pears, the makers of Pears Soap. He was also the "father of modern advertising." He didn't care about Roman history. He cared about cleanliness.
He bought the painting (specifically, the reproduction rights) for a massive sum. He realized that the flushed, clean skin of the Roman beauty was the perfect advertisement for his product.
Pears Soap launched a nationwide campaign. They didn't put the painting in a gallery; they put it on billboards, posters, and postcards. They sometimes added a bar of soap into the corner of the image, or simply the Pears logo.
The art establishment was horrified. They argued that Art was sacred, a window into the soul, not a tool to sell hygiene products. But the public loved it. Alma-Tadema had inadvertently created the first "Supermodel" campaign.
The Legacy
The story has a fitting ending. The original painting—which Alma-Tadema had painted as a personal study, not a commission—survived the advertising era.
Eventually, the Pears company was acquired by the soap giant Lord Leverhulme (founder of Lever Brothers). Leverhulme was a man who owed his fortune to soap, but his heart belonged to art. He didn't use the painting for more ads. Instead, he retired it from its commercial life.
He built a magnificent museum, the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight, specifically to house his collection.
Today, The Tepidarium hangs there in pride of place. It is a strange and beautiful survivor—a painting born of an artist's private obsession, hijacked by the world of advertising, and finally rescued by a soap tycoon who understood its true value.
