Description & Technical information

Part of a group of early drawings by Alma-Tadema, all taken from a sketchbook, which may be dated to c.1857-1858. The drawings may be related to a series of paintings of Egyptian subjects, entitled Going to the Oracle and The Contrary Oracle, that Alma-Tadema planned in 1857 and 1858, but never executed. The first owner of these drawings was the art critic and biographer Edmund Gosse, a cousin of the artist’s second wife, Laura Epps.

Date:  1857-58
Period:  1850-1900, 19th century
Origin:  The Netherlands, Germany
Medium: Pencil, Red chalk, Buff paper
Signature: Inscribed (by the artist’s daughter Anna) with the artist’s initials LAT at the bottom centre right.

Dimensions: 29.3 x 26.8 cm (11¹/₂ x 10¹/₂ inches)
Provenance: The studio of the artist
The artist’s brother-in-law, Sir Edmund William Gosse, London
By descent in the Gosse family until the 1920s or 1930s
Acquired by a private collector
Thence by descent until 2015.


Categories: Paintings, Drawings & Prints