Alma-Tadema and Victorian Painting in the Pérez-Simón Collection
A century after its disappearance, the long-maligned genre of Victorian Painting is currently enjoying a considerable revival thanks to several enthusiast collectors. The collection that Juan Antonio Pérez-Simón, a Mexican businessman of Spanish ascent, has built over the last thirty years is undoubtedly one of the finest in private hands.
The fifty works currently on display at the Museo Thyssen offer a magnificent overview of Victorian painting from the 1860s to the outbreak of World War I. They clearly illustrate the two main themes that dominate this form of artistic creation so original in the Europe of this time: the cult of formal—and primarily feminine—beauty, and the passion for Greco-Roman culture, best exemplified by Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
