A Foregone Conclusion Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1885

A Foregone Conclusion
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema 1885
From the collection of
Tate Britain
A moment from contemporary Victorian life is shown here taking place in ancient Greece or Rome. A man brings an engagement ring to his girlfriend in the hope that she will become his fiancée. Her eager attitude shows that the result of his proposal is 'a foregone conclusion'. Although Alma-Tadema took great care in the authenticity of his classical settings, the modern subject would have made the painting accessible to a nineteenth-century audience. The painting belonged to Sir Henry Tate's second wife, Amy Hislop. They were married the year it was painted and he may have given it to her as an engagement present.
Details
Title: A Foregone Conclusion
Creator: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Date Created: 1885
Provenance: Bequeathed by Amy, Lady Tate 1920
Physical Dimensions: w229 x h311 mm
Original Title: A Foregone Conclusion
Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on wood

Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Jan 8, 1836 - Jun 25, 1912

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA was a Frisian painter of special British denizenship.
Born in Dronrijp, 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.
Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship 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 English art.
http://hisour.com/art-medium/paintings/a-foregone-conclusion-sir-lawrence-alma-tadema-1885/