Entrance of the theatre

Entrance of the Theatre (1866) is an early work depicting Roman theatergoers gathering at the entrance to an ancient performance venue—one of Alma-Tadema's first explorations of the classical genre subjects that would define his career. At this date he had recently absorbed the transformative influence of Egyptian and Greek antiquities he studied in the British Museum during a visit to London in 1862, and had begun shifting from Merovingian Belgian historical subjects toward Roman and Greek genre. The Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Friesland, holds this canvas—appropriate for an institution in Alma-Tadema's native province in the northern Netherlands, where he was born in 1836. Theatrical subjects appeared several times in his output, the theater being a Roman institution that allowed him to depict the social diversity of ancient urban life gathering in a shared cultural space.

Oil on canvas from his early classical period, showing developing rather than fully mature technique. The architecture of the theater entrance provides structural organization for the figure groupings, and Alma-Tadema's emerging skill at differentiating crowd types—social classes, ages, genders—through costume and posture is visible at this early date.