Professor George Aitchison (1825–1910), RA, RGM, PRIBA

Professor George Aitchison (1825–1910), RA, RGM, PRIBA (1900) is a formal portrait of the distinguished Victorian architect and designer who became President of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1896. Aitchison is significant in Victorian architectural history for his advocacy of polychrome decoration and his designs for the interior of Leighton House, Lord Leighton's famous Arab Hall. That Alma-Tadema portrayed him connects two of the most sophisticated practitioners of archaeological imagination in Victorian art: Aitchison drew on Moorish, Byzantine, and classical sources as freely as Alma-Tadema drew on Roman ones. The Royal Academy holds this canvas as an institutional portrait. The portrait's date—1900—places it late in both men's careers, when they were recognized patriarchs of a tradition about to be challenged by modernism.

Oil on canvas with the composed, dignified bearing appropriate to a formal professional portrait. At this late date Alma-Tadema's technique is fully assured, and his portraiture achieves a naturalness that distinguishes his best character studies from more formulaic institutional representations.