(1852 C 15 August 1909 in Hindhead) was from 1871 the second wife of the painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema and a painter in her own right. A daughter of Dr George Napoleon Epps (who was brother of Dr John Epps), her two sisters were also painters (Emily studied under John Brett, a Pre-Raphaelite, and Ellen under Ford Madox Brown), whilst Edmund Gosse and Rowland Hill were her brothers-in-law. It was at Madox Brown's home that Alma-Tadema first met her in December 1869, when she was aged 17 and he 33. (His first wife had died in May that year.) He fell in love at first sight,and so it was partly her presence in London (and partly the fact that only in England had his work consistently sold) that influenced him into relocating in England rather than elsewhere when forced to leave the continent by the outbreak of the Franco Prussian War in July 1870. Arriving in London at the beginning of September 1870 with his small daughters and sister Artje, Alma-Tadema wasted no time in contacting Laura, and it was arranged that he would give her painting lessons. During one of these, he proposed marriage. As he was then thirty-four and Laura was now only eighteen, her father was initially opposed to the idea. Dr Epps finally agreed on the condition that they should wait until they knew each other better. They married in July 1871 and, though this second marriage proved childless, it also proved enduring and happy, with Laura acting as stepmother to her husband's children by his first marriage. The Paris Salon in 1873 gave Laura her first success in painting, and five years later, at the Paris International Exhibition, she was one of only two English women artists exhibited.  Related Paintings of Laura Theresa Alma-Tadema :. | Roses of Heliogabalus | Caracalla Sir Lawrence Alma | With a Babe in the Woods | Saturnalia | Spring |
Related Artists:
Jean-Paul Laurens
1838-1921 French Jean Paul Laurens Gallery was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style. Born in Fourquevaux, he was a pupil of L??on Cogniet and Alexandre Bida. Strongly anti-clerical and republican, his work was often on historical and religious themes, through which he sought to convey a message of opposition to monarchical and clerical oppression. His erudition and technical mastery were much admired in his time, but in later years his hyper-realistic technique, coupled to a highly theatrical mise-en-sc??ne, came to be regarded as overly didactic and even involuntarily comical. Laurens was commissioned to paint numerous public works by the French Third Republic, including the steel vault of the Paris city hall, the monumental series on the life of Saint Genevieve in the apse of the Panth??on, the decorated ceiling of the Od??on Theater, and the hall of distinguished citizens at the Toulouse capitol. He also provided illustrations for Augustin Thierry's R??cits des temps m??rovingiens ("Accounts of Merovingian Times"). Laurens was a professor at the École nationale sup??rieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he taught Andr?? Dunoyer de Segonzac and George Barbier. Two of his sons, Paul Albert Laurens (1870-1934) and Jean-Pierre Laurens (1875-1932), became painters and teachers at the Acad??mie Julian. He died in Paris in 1921.
Maurice quentin de la tour
1704-88 French pastellist. He was one of the greatest pastellists of the 18th century, an equal of Jean-Sim?on Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau. Unlike them, however, he painted no works in oils. Reacting against the stately portraits of preceding generations and against the mythological portraits of many of his contemporaries, La Tour returned to a more realistic and sober style of work. The fundamental quality of his art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their fugitive emotions on to paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole', as he himself put it. His considerable success led to commissions from the royal family, the court, the rich bourgeoisie and from literary, artistic and theatrical circles.
Giovanni Battista Moroni
Italian c1520-1578 was a North Italian painter of the Late Renaissance period. He is also called Giambattista Moroni. Best known for his elegantly realistic portraits of the local nobility and clergy, he is considered one of the great portrait painters of sixteenth century Italy. The National Gallery (London) has one of the best collections of his work, including the celebrated portrait known as Il Sarto (The Tailor, a member of the Fenaroli family, illustration). Other portraits are found in the Uffizi (the Nobleman Pointing to Flame inscribed "Et quid volo nisi ut ardeat?"), Berlin Gallery, the Canon Ludovico de' Terzi and Moroni's self-portrait; and in the National Gallery, Washington, the seated half-figure of the Jesuit Ercole Tasso, traditionally called "Titian's Schoolmaster", although there is no real connection with Titian. The Accademia Carrara (Bergamo) (Portrait of an old man). Ashmolean Museum (University of Oxford), Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis, Tennessee), Detroit Institute of Arts, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Hermitage Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna), the Liechtenstein Museum (Vienna), the Musee du Louvre, Mus??e Cond?? Chantilly (Chantilly, France), Museo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan), the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, National Galleries of Scotland, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Canada, the National Gallery, London, the Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, California), Pinacoteca Ambrosiana (Milan), Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), Rijksmuseum, the Ringling Museum of Art (Florida), Studio Esseci (Padua, Italy), University of Arizona Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Uffizi (Portrait of Giovanni Antonio Pantera) are among the public collections holding works by Giovanni Battista Moroni.