WHO IS IT? 1885 Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema VICTORIAN ENGRAVING

Original 1885 8 3/8 inch x 6 5/8 inch engraving titled WHO IS IT?.

Engraved by Frank Babbage (1858 - 1916). Animal painter and wood-engraver, born in Bridgewater, Somerset. His sporting works included fox-hunting and racing scenes. Worked in Hampstead, NW London.

Painted by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836 - 1912). A Dutch painter of special British denizenship. Born in Dronryp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky. Alma-Tadema was considered one of the most popular Victorian painters. Though admired during his lifetime for his draughtsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century British art.

Print size 8 3/4 inch x 12 inch

From ‘The Magazine of Art’ Vol. VIII. 1885. Published by Cassell & Company Ltd. - London, Paris, New York & Melbourne.

The engraving is in very good condition. Reverse side blank.