The Blind Beggar. Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Bathed in sunlight, an attractive young woman in Dutch country dress leans from an open window in one corner of a vine-covered cottage. She reaches out to drop coins in the hat of a young man outiside her window, who is wearing a patched and dirty tunic. He is soliciting charity on behalf of an elderly woman, who waits beside him in a wheeled, hand-drawn conveyance. A glimpse of a distant landscape is visible over the brick wall to the right. Although Alma-Tadema was only 20 when he painted this scene, he already shows in it the narrative skills that will bring him such success with his later re-creations of life in Greek and Roman antiquity. This genre scene was the artist's first major commission.
1856
oil on canvas
63.5 × 54 cm (25 × 21.3 in)
Walters Art Museum
Accession number 37.2761
Place of creation Antwerp, Belgium
Object history
Bernard N. Baker, Ingleside Estate, Catonsville, Maryland
Antonio Carozza, Catonsville, 1919, by purchase [in conjunction with the purchase of Baker's house and property]
Thomas A. Carozza [grandson], White Hall, 1954, by inheritance
2000: given to Walters Art Museum
Credit line Gift of Mr. and Mrs. A. Thomas Carozza II, in memory of Antonio T. and Margueretta Carozza, 2000
Inscriptions [Signature] Lower right: L. Alma-Tadema; [Inscription] Hand-lettered on inner frame: The Blind Beggar, Sir Alma Tadema, R.A.
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