Cherries

Lourens Alma Tadema, who was born in Friesland, trained as an artist in Antwerp, where he studed at the famous Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He was taught by Louis De Taeye, worked for a while in the studio of Henri Leys, and scored his first major success at the Antwerp Salon of 1861. Tadema moved to London in 1870…

Lourens Alma Tadema, who was born in Friesland, trained as an artist in Antwerp, where he studed at the famous Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He was taught by Louis De Taeye, worked for a while in the studio of Henri Leys, and scored his first major success at the Antwerp Salon of 1861. Tadema moved to London in 1870, where he made his name. Tadema never forget the city to which he owed so much. When the Cercle artistique, littéraire et scientifique d’Anvers invited artists to help decorate its reception room he did not hesitate to donate a work. The Cercle had been founded in 1852 and soon grew into a meeting place where the prosperous Antwerp elite could enjoy a wide range of cultural events. In 1865 the Cercle (which later changed its name to the Koninklijk Kunstverbond) decided to decorate its reception room with a gallery of paintings that would be a fitting illustration of its aims and aspirations. It commissioned a series of portraits of the principal artists and scientists from the celebrated past of the city, and by extension the entire Low Countries, as well as a cabinet of genre scenes, landscapes, animal pieces, marines and still lifes. The dimensions, materials and technique (matte oil paint) were specified in the commission. On 18 August 1873 the newly furnished reception room was ceremoniously opened in the presence of King Leopold II and Queen Maria Hendrika. Tadema delivered his painting at the very last minute in August 1873. Cherries is unique in his oeuvre. The horizontal format and the matte technique met the demands of his clients. The small paintings were inserted in the wainscoting like a frieze below the lifesized portraits. Tadema chose a contemporary image as his subject. A beautiful, red-haired woman looks enticingly at the viewers and offers them cherries in an unmistakable sexual invitation. Eating cherries together had been a metaphor for lovemaking since the Middle Ages, and nothing had changed in the meantime. The model was very probably Laura Theresa Epps (1852-1909), the young woman whom the artist had just married and who regularly posed for him. The artful hairdo, tiger skin and antique red mural are repetitions from other paintings of his. The marble pilaster on the far right was his speciality, for he had perfected the technique of imitating white Carrara marble. The erotic scene, however, was new for him. The main character is no timid young lady but a huntress, a femme fatale. The sensual scene and the sketchy execution undoubtedly charmed the refined taste of the connoisseurs who frequented the Cercle Artistique.