Anna Alma-Tadema MBE (1867–1943) is not a household name. To date, there has been no dedicated exhibition, no book, and fewer than a handful of articles about her. Where her life and work have been given attention by writers and scholars, this consideration has frequently taken place within a wider and substantially more generous analysis of her father, the famous Victorian painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912).
Self-portrait
before 1893, oil on paper mounted on board by Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943) 
Recently however, her pictures have begun to pop up in exhibitions around the UK and in the US. This is helping to break the narrative that Anna Alma-Tadema is only of interest in the context of what she can reveal to us about a notable male family member. Indeed, past scholarship has implied that Anna's artistic career was cut short by her father's death, after which she supposedly stopped painting.
In fact, not only did she continue painting and exhibiting her work long after this date, she was given a major commission to create a painted record of the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 following the end of the First World War.
Far from being a minor artist who only dabbled in painting on account of her father, Anna appears to have been committed to the pursuit of a fine art career, as indicated by her extensive exhibition record in the UK (including the participation in fourteen of the Royal Academy's annual exhibitions between 1885 and 1928) and internationally, where her work was seen in her lifetime across Europe, the United States and New Zealand.
At present, the major obstacle to establishing the scope of her career and output is the limited number of artworks that have found their way into public collections or been seen at public auction.
Our Corner (Opus no. CXVI)
1873, oil on panel by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) 
Born in Brussels on 16th May 1867, Anna relocated to London in 1870 with her father, elder sister Laurence (1865–1940), and paternal aunt Artje following her mother's death.
In 1871 her father remarried, and Laura Theresa Epps (1852–1909) became a young stepmother to the Alma-Tadema sisters. The band of L's (Lawrence, Laura and Laurence) and Anna first lived at Townshend House in London. In October 1874, the building was substantially damaged by the Regent's Park Canal barge explosion – however, the family walked out unscathed.
Measuring Heights (Settling a Difference)
Laura Theresa Epps Alma-Tadema (1852–1909) 
Despite this dramatic incident and the tragedy of losing their mother at such a young age, the two sisters appear to have had a happy childhood. Laurence's anecdotes within the biography of her step-uncle, the poet and writer Edmund Gosse, provide brief insights into her and Anna's early lives and playful relationship with their newly extended family members.
For example, in 1876, when their parents were travelling abroad, the two girls came to live with the Gosse family. In the evenings, their step-uncle would play hide-and-seek with his nieces, providing the girls the opportunity to move about the house in a manner not afforded to them in their own home due to its various delicate treasures.
The Epps Family
(folding screen) 1870–1871
Laura Theresa Epps Alma-Tadema (1852–1909) and Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) 
This is not to say their familial home was cold and quiet. Their parents threw weekly parties that attracted artists, musicians, and other celebrities. Recollections from attendees attest to Laurence and Anna's inclusion and participation at these festivities that would have allowed the two sisters to mingle with the Who's Who of Victorian society from a young age.
The value of these social connections to Anna's later artistic practice is visible in her portrait of the famous pianist (and later Prime Minister of Poland) Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1891).
The Pre-Raphaelite artist and friend of the family Edward Burne-Jones would even serve as a sponsor for Anna's naturalisation as a British citizen in 1897.
While Laurence was first enamoured with the stage and later became a notable poet, writer and translator, Anna was quickly drawn to an artistic career. Given that both her father and stepmother were artists and the home was covered in paintings and prints, this is perhaps not entirely surprising.
A letter in the National Gallery Archive from 1882 indicates the approval of a request from Laura for Anna and herself to be provided with an admission card to study in the gallery, showing Laura's support of her teenage stepdaughter's interests and talent.
Shortly after, Anna's practice appears to begin in earnest, producing a suitably adequate still life painting in 1883 (Ashmolean Museum). Despite the picture's somewhat amateur character, Anna persevered with this genre to quickly achieve critical recognition.
A painting titled The End of the Season (now lost), showing a bundle of invitations impaled on a file, was exhibited at the Fine-Art Institute in Glasgow in February 1885. The Glasgow Herald described it as 'excellent work, with more of deftness in the drawing of its felicitous disorder of letters than appears at a glance... suggest[ing] all manner of romantic possibilities – love and flirtation and heart-sickness and rejoicing – according to the youth and imaginative strength of the visitor. Miss Alma-Tadema has made a good beginning.'
Other works exhibited in 1885 include The Library (1884, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York) at the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in April, The Lodge at the Grosvenor Gallery in May (now lost), and Interior of the Gold Room, Townshend House, London (c.1883, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City) at the Royal Academy in June.
Here we can see Anna's masterful eye for minute detail and skill with watercolour – pictures made even more incredible given that she made them under the age of 18.
Critics highlighted Anna's work in their reviews of these large shows.
In their review of the Royal Academy exhibition, the critic for The Times wrote: 'Many well-known painters adorn the next wall, but none of them surpass the work of a novice – and a very young novice – Miss Anna Alma Tadema... The mastery with which she has rendered every detail of walls, curtain, ornaments, and furniture is truly astonishing, if only as an example of suddenly developed hereditary talent. We shall look with much interest to the future work of the same hand.'
This painting is one of many studies Anna made of Townshend House – possibly produced as mementoes prior to the family's departure for their new home at Grove End Road in St John's Wood, London.
Her interest in this kind of subject continued however, as shown by the production of The Porter's Lodge at 17, Grove End Road and The Garden Studio. These images show that her interest in interior studies extended beyond their commemorative capacity, while images like Drawing Room, 1A Holland Park demonstrate an engagement in interiors beyond her familial space and reiterate her social connections via this depiction of the richly ornamented home of the Ionides–Coronio family.
Critics praised the painting for its 'extraordinary power of rendering the minutest details in an imitative way while preserving the broad features of light and shade which have been characteristic of all the works yet exhibited by this young artist.'
Awards shortly followed. In 1889 she won a silver medal at the Paris Exposition for her watercolour The Drawing Room, Townshend House, with a further medal awarded in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago for her self-portrait in oil.
Anna is included in Helen Blackburn's pamphlet Some Supporters of the Women's Suffrage Movement (1897), which documented the 'prominent men and women who have furthered the movement on various public occasions,' demonstrating that she was indeed a 'prominent' woman in Victorian society.
In October 1909, following Laura's death, Lawrence wrote to the Director of the National Gallery to bequeath to the Trustees of the Tate Gallery 'a small circular oil painting on panel' from his late wife's collection, titled Blue Bells of Scotland, plus 'a more important work by my daughter' from his own collection, titled The Idler's Harvest. Unfortunately, both pictures were rejected for admittance to the collection, as was a work by Laura herself which was offered by her sister Ellen Gosse.
The Idler's Harvest
1900, oil on panel by Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943) 
The thematic categories in which Anna's work was placed throughout her career and posthumously hint at a wealth of further images that are awaiting rediscovery and public appreciation.
In 1894, her step-aunt Ellen described her as someone who had 'distinguished herself during the last few years by many highly finished water-colour studies of buildings and house-interiors, and also by several delicately drawn portrait-heads, executed in pencil and chalk.'
Whilst several interior paintings have survived, the reference to multiple studies of buildings and portrait drawings is currently only supported by very limited examples (see, for example, Eton College Chapel).
Eton College Chapel
before 1887, watercolour and gouache by Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943) 
Her identification as a landscape painter in several artist dictionaries also teases at the possibility of a significant number of pictures of this kind within private collections that are awaiting reconsideration – a sample of which can be seen in the Witt Library's recently digitised archive.
Print of an untraced landscape by Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943), dated 1905
Print of an untraced study of clouds by Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943)
We may find several pictures by this Belgian-British artist in the United States. Her work appears to have made a significant impression on the American public following its exhibition in Chicago in 1893 and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Missouri in 1904.
An American writer argued in 1918 that 'Great Britain has given to art such names among women as Catherine Read, Angelica Kauffmann, Anna Alma-Tadema and Eleanor Brickdale.'
Anna's presence amongst this select group alludes to fame that has been forgotten but can be re-established.
Susie Beckham, art historian
This content was funded by the Bridget Riley Art Foundation
Further reading
J. Barrow, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Phaidon, 2001
Susie Beckham, 'Recovering Anna Alma-Tadema (1867–1943)' in British Art Journal, vol. 22, no. 3, 2021–2022
Helen Blackburn, Some Supporters of the Women's Suffrage Movement, Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage, 1897
Alexis Goodin, 'Identifying Anna Alma-Tadema's Maisie' in Master Drawings, vol. 62, no. 1, 2024
Ellen Gosse, 'Laurens Alma-Tadema', Century Magazine, vol. 47, no. 4, 1894
Horace A. Hollister, The Woman Citizen: A Problem in Education, D. Appleton and Company, 1918
Elizabeth Prettejohn and Peter Trippi (eds), Lawrence Alma-Tadema: At Home in Antiquity, exhibition catalogue, Prestel, 2016
Elizabeth Prettejohn and Peter Trippi, 'Introduction: The Alma-Tademas' Studio-Houses and Beyond', in British Art Studies, no. 9, 2018
Emily Stidston, '19th-century artist in residence', National Archives Blog, 2015
Ann Thwaite, Edmund Gosse: A Literary Landscape, 1849–1928, Secker & Warburg, 1984
