Lawrence Alma-Tadema was famous in his time for painting beautiful, listless people in decadent faux-Roman settings, but even for an artist known for emotionally shallow work, this is a startlingly dull, emotionless scene. A young woman stares blankly into space, and a young man fiddles with a walking stick. Alma-Tadema’s flowers, a fixture of his luxurious settings, are clumsily integrated, without the compositional drama of The Roses of Heliogabalus or Unconscious Rivals.
