The intimate life of the Roman women has often attracted Alma Tadema's brush. We see this again and again in _Well-protected Slumber_, in _Quiet Pets_, in _Departure_, the scene suggested by Theocritus's fifteenth Idyll, in _The Bath_, in _Apodyterium_ (or women's disrobing-room), and it is also accentuated in the _Shrine of Venus_, a scene in a Roman hairdresser's shop. This picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889, where it attracted considerable attention, not only because of the perfection of its painting, the beauty of marbles and metals and textiles, the richness of its soft, full colour, its yellows and blues, but because of the masterly skill with which the human figures were painted (see illustration, p. 32). Two beautiful young girls, one awaiting her turn to be _coiffée_, caressing the masses of her thick, dark, loosened hair, the other already dressed, lingering to gossip with her friend, are reclining on a marble bench. These are so entirely absorbed in their own beauty that they pay but slight attention to the entrance of a tall, simply attired matron, who, glancing inquiringly in their direction, passes on to an inner apartment. In sweeping by she has carelessly plucked one from a mass of blossoms heaped upon a coloured marble table in the outer shop, and her hand, holding the flower, falls heavily beside the warm white folds of her gown. At the open lunette shop window, exposing to view coils and twists of hair, some attendants are distributing vases and lotions to the customers, whose heads appear above the marble balustrade, on which stands a deep blue vase, encrusted with exquisite enamel figures. The figure of the attendant who is reaching down an alabaster pot is especially graceful and free in poise. Although the marble screen, surmounted by fluted columns, and the lunette window are sliced off at the top, the picture gives no impression of confinement. This sense of space is increased by the rim of a marble basin in the immediate foreground, the reclining figures which lower the eye level, and the skilful introduction through the open window, above the heads of the passers-by, of the entrance columns and intricate façade of an adjoining building. The triangle of blue sky and the blue glass vase standing out against the distant columns of the building across the square form one of Alma Tadema's many happy combinations. In some respects the most important picture painted by Alma Tadema of late years is called _The Coliseum_, which excited wondering praise for its masterly handling, its colour scheme, its archæological knowledge, when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1896. Attached to the title in the catalogue was this motto from Lord Byron's "Don Juan" that gave the keynote to that which the artist desired to express: