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Born Lourens Tadema (Alma being his middle name) in Dronryp, Friesland, to Pieter Tadema, a, and his 2nd wife Hinke Brouwer - from an earlier age Alma-Tadema showed artistic ability and the origins of his very systematic and accurate character as demonstrated in his subsequent pictures. He only used the now common form of his title after renting in london in 1870.At the age of 16 Alma-Tadema enrolled at the Antwerp Academy where he studied under Gustav Wappers and Nicaise de Keyser, both exponents of the Romantic movement in art. Later he became an assistant to the old painter Baron Hendryk Leys whilst residing in the home of an archaeologist, Louis p Taye. From those two men he started to develop his interest in archaeology and history, that has been further manufactured by connection with the German Egytologist, Georg Ebers. He aided Leys in painting old sketches in Antwerp's Town Hall.His early works represented the real history of the Merovingian dynasty, rulers of Gaul from the 6th to 8th centuries AD. But, having visited the International Exhibition in London in 1862, he became impressed by the Elgin Marbles and Egyptian artefacts in the British Museum, leading him to change a lot more towards Egyptian themes.In 1863 he married a French girl, Marie Pauline Gressin de Boisgirard, and they honeymooned in Italy where he encountered the newly-found ruins of Pompeii. Therefore fascinated was he by the Roman remains with their abundance of marble that rapidly historic Roman material came to the fore in his paintings.The Tademas quickly moved to Paris where Lourens entered in to a long-term agreement with the well-known art dealer Ernest Gambart, an important person with connections during Europe. In just a short time he moved his studio to Brussels.But in the 1860s, tragedy struck: his only son dying of smallpox in 1865 and his wife in 1869, leaving him to look after his two children Anna and Laurence. But bundle in his career used quickly and, in the same year, two of his paintings - A Roman Art Lover and Phyrric Dance - were shown at the Royal Academy in London.So properly were his paintings acquired over all that, upon browsing England the same year to see a physician, and in part due to the possible Prussian invasion of France, Alma-Tadema moved his home to London in 1870.The following year he married his seventeen-year-old student, Laura Epps, a daughter and member of a well-known family of cocoa makers. In 1873 he became a British citizen, at the same time frame consciously joining his middle name, Alma, to his surname. The hyphenation was in reality performed by others and it's since end up being the tradition. In addition, it had the fortuitous 'side-effect' of boosting his title to a premier position in alphabetical catalogues!Soon after marriage, the Tademas moved from a rented house in Camden Square to Townshend House, near Regent's Park. Sophisticated and elegant in decor, their house quickly became a favorite venue for events of fellow performers. Reputation and prosperity soon adopted and in 1876 Alma-Tadema became a Co-employee of the Royal Academy, being elected to the full Royal Academician in 1879. The Grosvenor Gallery staged an exhibit of 287 of his paintings in 1882. He'd become one of the most well-known artists in Britain.'Building' with this achievement, Alma-Tadema drew up plans for a far more spectacular house - the building for which he present in St John's Wood. In reality it absolutely was the former house of French artist James Tissot that were abandoned after the demise of his mistress, Kathleen Newton. It absolutely was then relatively small but had a number of conventional attributes that appealed to him (including the popular colonnade beside a garden pond, which featured in many of Tissot's canvases). But Alma-Tadema made it into virtually a palace, planning every detail himself - from the climate vane in the form of an palette and the entry modelled on one from Pompeii, to the rainspouts in the form of elephants' heads. The corridor was covered with panels painted by other artists and the huge galleried and marble-floored business was topped with a polished aluminum dome - the perfection of the light it resembled visibly influenced his paintings from then on.Both of his London properties were famous for their lavish parties, often in fancy dress outfits - the musician himlself having a for dressing as Nero - and where music was always an element. Known guests involved personalities such as for instance Tchaikovsky and Enrico Caruso.Alma-Tadema received awards and honors from around the world, though notably not from his own country of birth - including a from Britain in 1899 followed closely by the exclusive Order of Merit in 1905. His customers included people of the British Royal family and the Russian Imperial Family - he was in fact a famous Society portraitist. Indeed around 60 of his 400 plus paintings are commissioned pictures of sitters including the British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour to the Polish pianist and Prime Minister Paderewski.By the time of his death in 1912 at the German spa of Wiesbaden, he was so famous a musician that the British 'establishment' found fit for him to be buried in St Paul's Cathedral. Soon a short while later, his renowned house and contents were offered - the house being converted into residences, making some of the splended architectural nuances.