Unconscious Rivals by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Unconscious Rivals (1893) by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) is certainly not my favourite example of the artist’s work (that is In the Tepidarium) but it has resonance for other reasons . In my first year at University my girlfriend, C, was a lovely redhead who, like me, was enamoured of classicist paintings. Her best friend, the dark haired K, and I were close too and C thought that “the lascivious K” was pursuing me romantically. K was surprised to learn this and as a joke bought me a postcard of this painting, as it ‘depicted her and C being rivals’. Last year K and I visited the Alma-Tadema exhibition at Leighton House and saw the original (it is usually in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery). We recalled more torrid times with the amusement that comes from thirty eight years of distance.

I always thought that the setting was rather unusual in that it placed the women in a sort of Roman aircraft hangar.  I don't know of any classical building it is based on which is unusual for Alma-Tadema who was scrupulous about his classical sources.  The cupid here, for example, is based on one found at Pompeii, somewhere the artist had visited.