Portrait of Mr Soons

Lawrence Alma-Tadema composed this Portrait of Mr Soons in 1857, an early work created this while he was still training at the Royal Academy of Antwerp. Born in the Netherlands in 1836, Alma-Tadema had not yet developed the classical subjects for which he would become famous. This portrait shows his academic foundation before his turn toward depictions of ancient Rome.

Alma-Tadema would later settle in London in 1870 and become one of the most successful painters of his era. His images of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in marbled interiors against Mediterranean skies, made him enormously wealthy. He was knighted in 1899. But this early portrait belongs to his formative period, working in a more traditional style.

The work held at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, appropriate given Alma-Tadema's training there. While his later classical paintings fell into disrepute after his death, they have been re-evaluated since the 1960s for their importance to Victorian art.