"A Favorite Custom" by Alma-Tadema

This painting is by one of my favorite painters, Alma-Tadema. It follows his usual style, incorporating the ever-present redheaded woman, as well as the robes and great swaths of marble that prevail in 19th century Greco-Roman art. I suppose he must have loved to visit Greece. The water is done well also, the ripples on the surface, but the problem with this painting is that the two swimmer's bodies are not distorted in the slightest, which they would have been had they actually been underwater. I suppose it would have been difficult to paint.