The Balneator

Alma-Tadema painted several pictures treating the subject of the Roman baths from 1875 onwards, possibly due to his acquisition of a large portfolio of photographs of Pompeii and the exhibits in the Museum at Naples around this time. A bath attendant such as this one would have been involved in the bathing process before a bather entered the caldarium, the largest of the hot rooms in a Roman bath. His sponge, strigils, and other instruments were used to apply oil to the skin and then scrape it off, an early form of cleansing. Bath attendants during the Roman empire were almost always enslaved people who were owned by the bathhouse where they worked, although sometimes the wealthiest Roman citizens would bring their personal slaves with them to assist with bathing.
The present work was exhibited at the Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1877, where it was shown alongside a pendant work of a Balneatrix, a female figure holding a tray of towels (fig. 1). Both works were critically well-received, praised for the fact that they were as highly finished as his oil paintings and for Alma-Tadema’s ‘consummate ability in the depiction of marbles and interiors.’ While Alma-Tadema’s skill at painting marble has long been acknowledged, it is particularly notable here in watercolor, a notoriously difficult medium. His contrasting of different colors and types of marbles further highlights this skill. To achieve the wrapped texture of the tassels in the figure’s costume, Alma-Tadema scratched small horizontal lines in the paper surface to extremely successful effect.

We are grateful to Dr. Vern Swanson for contributing to the cataloguing of this work.