Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, (
January 8, 1836, Dronrijp, Netherlands - June 25, 1912, Wiesbaden, Germany),
Dutch-born painter of scenes from everyday life in the ancient world whose work was immensely popular in its time.
Alma-Tadema, the son of a Dutch notary, studied art at the Antwerp Academy (1852-58) under the Belgian historical painter Hendrik Leys, assisting the painter in 1859 with frescoes for the Stadhuis (town hall) in Antwerp.
During a visit to Italy in 1863, Alma-Tadema became interested in Greek and Roman antiquity and Egyptian archaeology, and afterward he depicted imagery almost exclusively from those sources.
Moving to England, he became a naturalized British subject in 1873 and was elected a member of the Royal Academy in 1879. He was knighted in 1899.