b.Jan. 8, 1836, Dronrijp, Netherlands. d.June 25, 1912, Wiesbaden, Germany. Painter and designer of Dutch birth. The son of a notary, Alma-Tadema demonstrated an early artistic ability. In 1852 he entered the Antwerp Academy, where he studied under Gustaf, Baron Wappers, and Nicaise de Keyser. An important influence at this time was Louis De Taye, Professor of Archaeology at the academy and a practising artist. Alma-Tadema lived and worked with De Taye from 1857 to 1859 and was encouraged by him to depict subjects from the early history of France and Belgium. This taste for historical themes increased when Alma-Tadema entered Baron Henri Leys studio in 1859 and began assisting him with his monumental frescoes for the Antwerp Town Hall. While in Leys studio, Alma-Tadema produced several major paintings, for example the Education of the Children of Clovis (1861; ex-Sir John Pender priv. col., see Zimmern, p. 3) and Venantius Fortunatus Reading his Poems to Radagonda (1862; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Mus.), which are characterized by their obscure Merovingian subject-matter, rather sombre colouring and close attention to detail.  Related Paintings of Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence :. | Portrait of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (mk23) | A Roman Emperor AD 41 (mk23) | Pastimes in Ancient Egypt 3000 Years Ago (mk23) | The Year ' s at the Spring (mk24) | Pandora (mk23) |
Related Artists:
Johann Georg von Dillis
(born Gmain, December 26, 1759 - died Munich, September 28, 1841) was a German painter. Son of a gamekeeper and forester, he was educated in Munich with support from the prince-elector of Bavaria. Initially he was trained for the priesthood, but by 1786 his real interest, art, was beginning to be developed, and he taught drawing both at court and to private families. In 1790 he was appointed inspector of the Hofgarten Galerie, the princely collection. He continued in a curatorial role for the Bavarian court for much of the rest of his career; this allowed him some freedom to travel and expand his knowledge of European art. In 1792 he traveled to Dresden, Prague, and Vienna, and in 1794 he made his first trip to Italy, where he made watercolor studies from nature. A further trip to Italy followed in 1805, and brought him to Rome, where he met Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, who introduced him to the idea of painting in open air. He studied the work of Simon Denis and Joseph Mallaord William Turner, and encountered Washington Allston. The next year, in Paris, he saw oil sketches by Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, and with Ludwig, the crown prince visited the Musee Napoleon; he would later advise the prince on collecting and other matters artistic, remaining in this capacity for the rest of his life. He also made several trips to Italy to purchase art for the royal collection. In 1816 he was made responsible for packing and returning to Munich from Paris art stolen from Bavaria by Napoleon. In the fall of 1817 he and Ludwig traveled to Sicily before spending four months in Rome. Dillis helped to shape the collections of the Alte Pinakothek, which opened in 1836. He died in Munich in 1841.
Sofonisba Anguisciola
1532?C1625, The best known of the sisters, she was trained, with Elena, by Campi and Gatti. Most of Vasari's account of his visit to the Anguissola family is devoted to Sofonisba, about whom he wrote: 'Anguissola has shown greater application and better grace than any other woman of our age in her endeavours at drawing; she has thus succeeded not only in drawing, colouring and painting from nature, and copying excellently from others, but by herself has created rare and very beautiful paintings'. Sofonisba's privileged background was unusual among woman artists of the 16th century, most of whom, like Lavinia Fontana (see FONTANA (ii),(2)), FEDE GALIZIA and Barbara Longhi (see LONGHI (i), (3)), were daughters of painters. Her social class did not, however, enable her to transcend the constraints of her sex. Without the possibility of studying anatomy, or drawing from life, she could not undertake the complex multi-figure compositions required for large-scale religious or history paintings. She turned instead to the models accessible to her, exploring a new type of portraiture with sitters in informal domestic settings. The influence of Campi, whose reputation was based on portraiture, is evident in her early works, such as the Self-portrait (Florence, Uffizi). Her work was allied to the worldly tradition of Cremona, much influenced by the art of Parma and Mantua, in which even religious works were imbued with extreme delicacy and charm. From Gatti she seems to have absorbed elements reminiscent of Correggio, beginning a trend that became marked in Cremonese painting of the late 16th century.
Antonio Ponce
Spanish, 1608-1662,Spanish painter. He had an undistinguished career in Madrid as a painter of still-lifes and flower-pieces. In 1624 Ponce was apprenticed to Juan van der Hamen y Leen, whose niece he married in 1628. The format of Ponce's compositions and some of his motifs derive from works by van der Hamen, though lacking their subtlety of composition, spatial clarity and formal conviction. In Vase of Flowers, signed and dated 1650 (Strasbourg, Mus. B.-A.), Ponce's style shows laboured imitation of van der Hamen's: his dry execution results in a paradoxically airless and petrified quality. Ponce was always a derivative artist, and some of his still-lifes with seasonal themes are similar to works by Francisco de Barrera, another modest painter with whom he was documented in the 1630s. Paintings from the 1640s and 1650s depicting baskets of fruit and bunches of grapes against light backgrounds are characterized by compositional informality, softer lighting and freer brushwork, through which Ponce attempted to convey the textures of objects and endow the subject with greater naturalness.