entrance to the theatre

A group of people greet each other in front of the entrance to a theatre. A bronze cisium – an open two-wheeled cart – has just dropped off some visitors and is leaving the scene. They are attending a performance of the comedy The Girl of Andros by the Roman playwright Terentius (c. 186-159 BCE).

Entrance to the theatre, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1866. Click on the image to see a larger version.

We know this because the names of the actors performing in the play are displayed on the right-hand side of the outer wall, with small masks next to them. This list identifies the main characters in the play, because actors wore masks as standard acting props on Roman stages. The masks also hang from the green garlands in the passageway, as decoration, and Alma-Tadema also added a pair of comedy/tragedy masks on the frame. Standing in front of the painting, we are spectators of the encounter on the steps of the theatre, and it feels as if we could cross the street to enter the theatre as well.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema was captivated by Roman antiquity during his honeymoon in Rome, Florence, Naples and Pompeii in 1863. He made endless drawings during this months-long stay in Italy. At home in Antwerp, he used his drawings of the ruins of the Odeion in Pompeii, a small, roofed comedy theatre, as a starting point for Entrance to the theatre. It is one of Alma-Tadema's first Roman subjects and from the outset was intended for the English market, hence the English title on the frame. Immediately after its completion it was exhibited in London and after that was always in the collections of English or American owners. With its acquisition for the Fries Museum, this key work is now permanently in Dutch possession. It can be seen in Leeuwarden, where the painter grew up and read Terentius at school.

Marlies Stoter – Curator Old Art