(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 :. | The Vintage Festival | Not at Home Sir Lawrence Alma | With a Babe in the Woods | Saturnalia | Roses of Heliogabalus |
Related Artists:
F Usher De Voll
1873-1941
James Abbott Mcneill Whistler
American Tonalist Painter and Printmaker, 1834-1903, He was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.
Frederic Yates
Frederic Yates (1854-1919) was an English painter. He gave up a business career to study painting in the Paris ateliers of Leon Bonnat, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. In 1886, he moved to San Francisco where his family had settled a few years earlier. In San Francisco, he became a popular portraitist and taught at the newly formed Art Students League of San Francisco. On one of his visits to Europe, he made the acquaintance of the Dowager Marchioness of Downshire who became his patron and introduced him to London society. Yates was active in San Francisco until 1900, when he returned to England, where he lived at "Cote How" near Grasmere until 1906. During this period he painted the former United States president Woodrow Wilson and John Haden Badley. He died in 1919.