A Foregone Conclusion

1883

Back in Pompeii: daily visits to the excavations

In 1883 he returned to Rome and Pompeii, where further excavations had taken place since his last visit, and for several months he went there daily, which gave him an almost thorough knowledge of the life of the ancient Romans. His pictures contained so many accurate details that some critics found them like museum catalogues.

1883–1886

The Tissot house in St John's Wood: a £70,000 rebuilding

In 1883 he bought a house that had belonged to Jacques Tissot and radically rebuilt it to his own design: the work took the middle of the 1880s and cost £70,000, and he began to live there in 1886. The house had 66 rooms, three studios — his, Laura's and his daughter Anna's — collections of Japanese and Chinese art and of Greco-Roman antiquities, an entrance modelled on Pompeian porticoes, and an inscription “Ars longa, vita brevis” in the apse of the studio.

after 1886

The musical salon: Joachim, Paderewski, Caruso

After the rebuilding was finished the house became above all a musical centre of London: a passionate music lover, Alma-Tadema was friends with many instrumentalists, singers and actors, who also served as his models. Regular visitors included the violinist Joseph Joachim, the composer Ignacy Paderewski, Enrico Caruso and Eleonora Duse, and a close friend was the Dutch violinist Maurice Sons.