Study of a Draped Figure by Lord Frederic Leighton

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Study of a Draped Figure by Lord Frederic Leighton

About the Item

One of the most widely admired artists of the Victorian era in England, Frederic Leighton created grand figurative paintings, representing a final flowering of the European classical tradition. Leighton was the son of a Yorkshire doctor, who inherited a fortune from his own father, doctor of the Czar of Russia. This patrimony allowed the family to travel extensively on the European continent, and afforded the young Leighton a rather cosmopolitan upbringing. He studied painting in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Brussels, as well as in Florence at the Accademia di Belle Arti and later in Frankfurt at the Stadelisches Kunstinstitut. From 1850 to 1852 in Frankfurt, the Nazarene artist, Edward von Steinle, served as his mentor, under whose tutelage the young artist became an enthusiastic medievalist. After working in Rome, Leighton returned to London in 1855 to exhibit at the Royal Academy his first major canvas, Cimabue’s Madonna Carried in Procession, which was purchased by Queen Victoria. Soon, he abandoned medieval and religious themes in favor of a more classical, decidedly Hellenistic subject matter, which made him famous. Regularly exhibiting his most important canvases, Leighton became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1864, a full member in 1868, and finally was elected in 1878 its president, a role that he held until his death in 1896. With such compositions as Venus Disrobing for the bath, Hercules Wrestling with Death, The garden of the Hesperides, and Flaming June, Leighton established himself as the leading neoclassical painter of the Victorian age. The creation of the artist’s finished canvases was reliant upon his archive of figure drawings, such as this sheet. Leighton is known to have kept his drawings in thematically arranged drawers, in which he searched for appropriate figural poses, which were then elaborated and used in compositions. This black and white chalk drawing on buff paper is a Fine example of Leighton’s graphic work, typical in medium and technique, a drapery study with a female figure whose upper body in completely reduced to its most basic outline, in an almost proto-cubist fashion. Provenance: with Frederick Keppel, New York, circa 1960.

Creator:
Frederic Leighton (Artist)
Dimensions:
Height: 19.5 in (49.53 cm)Width: 15.5 in (39.37 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
Style:
Pre-Raphaelite (Of the Period)
Place of Origin:
United Kingdom
Period:
1880-1889
Date of Manufacture:
circa 1885-1890
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
Seller: JA0018521stDibs: LU89771339546