Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Preparations for the Festivities, 1866

In the foreground, two brightly lit figures, a man and a woman, engage in conversation, while the woman and a servant construct an elaborate chain of flowers. Behind the man on the left, another servant ties a finished wreath to an oil lamp. In the centre of the painting, various other knick-knacks have been assembled. Clearly, the room is being decorated for a special occasion. Preparations for the festivities was one of the earliest paintings in which Almatadema dealt with a classical subject. The festivities mentioned in the title are in honour of the god Bacchus. While no image of Bacchus appears in the painting, the green tunic decorated with gold embroidery, visible in the middle distance, surrounded by the branches of a shrub, symbolises his presence. Almatadema visited Italy with his first wife on their honeymoon in 1863, a visit that sparked a lifelong fascination with the classical past. During the 1860s and 70s, Rome was being extensively photographed by documentary photographers keen to record its ancient buildings and monuments. Almatadema began buying and taking photographs, images which he used as reference material for his paintings of daily life in the ancient world. He was particularly fascinated by the excavations being undertaken at Pompeii and Herculaneum, Roman cities destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Preparations for the festivities is packed with well-researched historical details. The furniture, costumes and sculptural decorations all reflect Almatadema's interest in archaeological accuracy. The statue of the rearing horse in the background, for example, is based on a small bronze from Herculaneum, which is now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. The painting was with immense popular acclaim when it was first exhibited in Brussels in 1866, and this success prompted the artist to specialise in classical themes for the rest of his career. Almatadema's beloved first wife died in 1869. The following year he relocated with his two daughters to London. There he met and fell in love with the 17-year-old Laura Epps, who became first his student and subsequently his second wife. And there he established himself as one of the most successful classical painters of the 19th century.