Lawrence Alma-Tadema: Love's Jewelled Fetter (detail)

Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was born in the Netherlands, and trained at the Academy of Antwerp in Belgium. He settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there.  A classical-subject painter, he was admired for his superb draftsmanship and 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. His curiosity about the ancient world was insatiable, and the knowledge he acquired was incorporated into over three hundred paintings of ancient archeological and architectural design.

Love’s Jewelled Fetter is distinguished by the gem-hued palette of a riotous azalea bush dominating the foreground and a brilliant azure sea extending towards the horizon. Two beautiful patrician women, arranged on a bronze settee upon a marble terrace under floral garlands, overlook a mountainous coast studded with Roman villas. The artist surely sought to convey a calm Bay of Naples, the area described in ancient sources as a popular resort during the early Empire, where the elite escaped from Rome to their luxury villas nestled among the region’s cliffs.

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HC-1026: card size 6" x 6" (150mm x 150mm)