international appeal, so he switched to themes of life in ancient Egypt, which were more popular. In 1862 Alma-Tadema left Leys's studio and started his own career, establishing himself as a significant classical-subject European artist. 1863 was to alter the course of Alma-Tadema's personal and professional life: on 3 January his invalid mother died, and on 24 September he was married, in Antwerp City Hall, to Marie-Pauline Gressin-Dumoulin de Boisgirard, the daughter of Eugène Gressin-Dumoulin, a French journalist living near Brussels. Nothing is known of their meeting and little of Pauline herself, as Alma-Tadema never spoke about her after her death in 1869. Her image appears in a number of oils, though he painted her portrait only three times, the most notable appearing in My studio (1867). The couple had three children. Their eldest and only son lived only a few months dying of smallpox. Their two daughters, Laurence (1865–1940) and Anna (1867–1943), both had artistic leanings: the former in literature, the latter in art. Neither would marry. Alma-Tadema and his wife spent their honeymoon in Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii. This, his first visit to Italy, developed his interest in depicting the life of ancient Greece and Rome, especially the latter since he found new inspiration in the ruins of Pompeii, which fascinated him and would inspire much of his work in the coming decades. There he met Geremia Discanno, an Italian painter who had been commissioned by archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli to reproduce the brightly painted frescoes being uncovered in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum before they faded from exposure. He would consult Discanno a number of times before Discanno's death in 1907 to ensure his paintings of antiquity would reflect the lifestyle of residents of the Greco-Roman world accurately. During the summer of 1864, Tadema met Ernest Gambart, the most influential print publisher and art dealer of the period. Gambart was highly impressed with the work of Tadema, who was then painting Egyptian Chess Players (1865). The dealer, recognising at once the unusual gifts of the young painter, gave him an order for twenty-four pictures and arranged for three of Tadema's paintings to be shown in London. In 1865, Tadema relocated to Brussels where he was named a knight of the Order of Leopold. On 28 May 1869, after years of ill health, Pauline died of smallpox at Schaerbeek in Belgium, aged 32. Her death left Tadema