Silver Favourites

This is an outstanding example of Alma-Tadema's technique of contrasting gleaming white marble against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea. The artist obliterated the middle-ground. The foreground is abruptly juxtaposed with the distant horizon, creating a dramatic effect. Alma-Tadema was a perfectionist. He worked assiduously, often repeatedly reworking parts of paintings until they reached his exacting standards. One humorous story recounts an episode in which one of his paintings was rejected and instead of keeping it, he gave the canvas to a maid who used it as a table cover. He was sensitive to every detail and architectural line of his paintings, including the settings he was depicting. Many of the objects in his paintings, were depicted from real life. He even used fresh flowers imported from across the continent and Africa, rushing to finish the paintings before the flowers died. It was this commitment to veracity that earned him recognition but also caused many of his adversaries to take up arms against his almost encyclopedic works.