The Drawing Room, Townshend House

This highly intricate watercolour shows one of a suite of ornate drawing rooms in the artist's home, Townshend House in Regent's Park, London. This was the studio-house of the Dutch painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) and his family, in which he created a set of extravagant and eclectic interiors in a variety of styles ranging from traditional Dutch to Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Pompeiian, Byzantine and Japanese. The rooms and furnishings served as props for Sir Lawrence's paintings and provided inspiration for his second wife Laura Epps and his daughter Anna who were also artists.

Anna Alma-Tadema painted this watercolour while still a teenager, demonstrating an exceptional talent for close observation and jewel-like colouring. A contemporary reviewer thought the work “astonishing…for its mastery of detail, elaborate minuteness of work and glow of colour”.

In 1886 the Alma-Tademas moved from Townshend House to Grove End Road in the popular artistic enclave of St. John's Wood. This is one of a series of watercolours that Anna painted of Townshend House, possibly intended to record their home before the rooms were dismantled.