This migration to the Nile closed what may be termed Alma Tadema's first artistic period, which embraces the ten years that lie between 1852 and 1862. In 1863 he exhibited his _Egyptians Three Thousand Years Ago_. Here, though archæological knowledge was manifest, Tadema did not sacrifice his picture to a pedantic display of learning. On the contrary, it rather seemed his object to show that these dead and gone old Egyptians, whom we are too inclined to think of as the stiff, lifeless figures that greet us from the temples and stone carvings of their native land, were men and women like to ourselves. A work such as this exhibited great study, more perhaps than that demanded by his Merovingians. But from the outset it was evident that Alma Tadema would not covenant with prevailing fashions in art in order to buy public favour at a cheap price. He would take up no task which did not commend itself to his æsthetic faith, to his individual inclination, to the particular preferences of his taste. Never, even at the outset of his career, when financial success had not yet come, did Alma Tadema convert his function of artist into an easy or lucrative profession. In _The Mummy, The Widow, The Egyptian at his Doorway_, Tadema for the first time applies the methods of genre painting to the treatment of antique themes. This novel manner of dealing with archæology, which is really of his creation, has found a large school of imitators, none of whom, however, approach the master either for spontaneity of conception or skill of execution. This leaning towards genre and its application to subjects that had hitherto not invited treatment in this manner, may probably be traced to Tadema's Dutch origin, seeing that the Dutch were past masters in this form of composition, which by them was chiefly used to illustrate trivial moments of their immediate environment. The most remarkable of these works is the _Death of the First-born_; indeed, Tadema ranks it as his best picture, and has never yet accepted any offer for its purchase. It hangs permanently in his studio, and is looked upon by his family as a priceless possession. The date of this work is 1873, when the artist had already begun to turn his attention to those Greco-Roman themes with which his fame has since been so closely associated. As the picture is not familiar to the world from reproductions, we will describe it at length. In this picture of the last, worst plague of Egypt, we find pathos, despair, and that silent grief which "whispers to the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."