Attributed to Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Lawrence Alma-Tadema gave each of his finished paintings an opus number in Roman numerals, a running count that had reached 408 by the end of his life, and from 1872 he painted it under his signature. A finished picture with its number can be checked against that record. A study usually cannot, because his sketches stayed outside the count, and small oil studies of figures and drapery were part of how he prepared his marble scenes.

Attributed to is the label a museum uses to place such a work. It means that specialists think the work is probably by Alma-Tadema himself, on the evidence of its handling and its history, while nothing on it or in his own record proves it. The label claims more than follower of, which means another painter working in his manner, and more than after, which describes a copy of one of his known pictures.