16 November 2024 - 27 April 2025
We've lent our Frederic, Lord Leighton of Stretton (1830-1896) landscape The Rocks of the Sirens, Capri to the Leighton House's 'Leighton and Landscape' exhibition.
This is one of two oil studies by Leighton, both entitled Rocks of the Sirens, Capri, that were in his studio sale at Christie’s in 1896; lot 55 was bought by Palmer for £52.10s and lot 243 by Charles Fairfax Murray for the same amount. According to a label verso, our picture was owned by the dealer Stephen T Gooden of Pall Mall. Fairfax Murray, an intimate of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and assistant to Burne-Jones, Rossetti and William Morris was also a picture dealer and sold many pictures to Gooden, so it is likely that this was the one purchased by Murray and subsequently owned by Gooden.
Leighton first visited Capri in 1859, when he spent five weeks on the island. To his old Frankfurt master Edward Steinle he wrote: ‘You would hardly believe, dear friend, how this wonderful island delighted me. I made vigourous use of my visit and executed a fairly large number of conscientious studies' (Barrington 1906, 2: 50). From the brushwork, the present work would appear to date from one of his later visits during the 1860s. Stylistically it relates to his studies made in 1866. Almost certainly painted out of doors, its freshness, vitality and brilliant light owes much to the example of his friends Corot and Nino Costa.
Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896) is recognised as one of the most prominent figures of 19th century British art. Travel was an important part of Leighton’s life from childhood. By his late teens, he was living with his family in Frankfurt, Germany and had already visited many of Europe’s major cities, including Florence and Rome; places which he would return to on many occasions over the next decades.
Once settled in London in the 1860s to pursue an artistic career, he continued to make extensive trips on an annual basis. The countries that Leighton visited on at least one occasion include Austria, Algeria, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, The Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Syria and Turkey.