The artwork
Death of the Pharaoh's Firstborn Son¹
painted by
Lawrence Alma Tadema (1836-1912) was created July 20th 1872. Tadema was from the Netherlands, learned painting at the Royal Academy of Antwerp in Belgium, and later moving to England in 1870 till his death. He gravitated around classical-subjects, specifically his love of luxury and decadence during the Roman Empire. The artwork depicts the Pharaoh mourning his dead son which is interpreted from the biblical text of Exodus verse 11:1- 12:32 showing the tenth and final plague God sends onto the Egyptians.
Jean Joseph Ernest Theodore Gambart (1814 – 1902) commissioned the work in London; the work stayed in his collection from 1872-1879. Gambart was Belgian but moved to London to be a art publisher and dealer; he was well known among the London art society during the mid-nineteenth century. Tadema bought back the painting in 1879 for his own private collection till his death in 1912 in which his daughters inherited the piece later donating it in 1913 to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The painting
Death of the Pharaoh's Firstborn Son is oil on canvas and is 30.3 × 49 in. Tadema starts by painting Merovingian themed art then switching to Egyptian then Classical Ancient Greece and Rome after his honeymoon to Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii in 1863. The Franco-Prussian War began in July of 1870 causing him to move to England. At this time, he also marries his second wife.
Laura Epps the daughter of Dr. George Napoleon Epps married Tadema in 1871. The
Franco-Prussian war began July 19th of 1870 till May 10th of 1871 between the Second French Empire and the Northern German States. This artwork falls under the age of Romanticism, which covered the approximate period from 1800 to 1850 focusing on of folk art, ancient customs, and historical events; the age of Romanticism is during the Victorian Era under the rule of
Queen Victoria whose reign was from 1837 to 1901.
¹Tadema, Lawrence.
Death of the Pharaoh's Firstborn Son. 1872.
Rijksmuseum, Netherlands. https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en​. 20 November 2015.
