FREDERIC, LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A.
(1830-1896)
 

Studies for Summer Moon

c.1872

chalk on blue paper

31.9 x 24 cm

inscribed: The Summer Moon           

inscribed on reverse: Mr Knowles (illegible) Leyton [sic]

P.184

Studies for the picture exhibited at the R.A. in 1872 (202) now in a private collection, India (see Leonee and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, p.129, pl.18).

Acknowledged leader of the Victorian classical school of painters and lion of cultured London society, Leighton occupied a position between the Grosvenor Gallery aesthetes and the R.A., of which he was President from 1878. He painted historical and biblical themes until, in the mid-1860s, he turned to the Greek classical subjects, which dominated the rest of his work.

His house and studio in Holland Park, which he built 1864-6, is now a museum devoted to his life and work. In 1896 he became the only artist ever to receive a barony.

EJ

PROVENANCE:                James Knowles, Esq., Trafford Bank House, Manchester; A. Morrison, Esq.; The Wilton Gallery, from whom purchased by Gallery, April 1958.

REFERENCES: Drawings and Studies in Pencil, Chalk and Other mediums by The Late Lord Leighton, published by Fine Art Society and MacMillan & Co., 1898; L. Zatlin, Aubrey Beardsley and Victorian Sexual Politics, 1990, p.131.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.