The Epps Family (folding screen)

The Epps Family (folding screen) (1870) is an exceptional work within Alma-Tadema's output—a folding screen painted as a unified decorative and portraiture project depicting members of the Epps family, into which he married (his second wife Laura was née Epps). The folding screen as a format bridged fine art and applied design, a boundary Alma-Tadema was willing to cross in a manner unusual among Victorian academic painters. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds this work, an appropriate institutional home for an object that occupies the intersection of painting and decorative art. The commission likely arose from his close personal connection to the family, giving it an intimate biographical character unlike his historical genre subjects. Combining portraiture with decorative format demonstrates Alma-Tadema's flexibility and his willingness to integrate artistic practice with domestic and social life.

Oil on canvas mounted on a folding screen structure, requiring adaptation of Alma-Tadema's easel painting technique to a three-dimensional functional object. The multiple panels of the screen would necessitate compositional unity across folded surfaces, a challenging spatial problem resolved through careful tonal and thematic consistency.