Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/103

 of Florence,' a cartoon founded on Boccaccio's description.

Late in 1852 he went to Rome, where his pleasant manners and varied accomplishments won him hosts of friends, among them Thackeray, George Sand, Lord Lyons, Gibson, George Mason, Hebert, Mrs. Kemble, Gerome, Bouguereau, and others. It was after meeting him here that Thackeray wrote to Millais, who was Leighton's senior by rather more than a year, 'I have met in Rome a versatile young dog who will run you hard for the presidentship one day.' Soon after he arrived in Rome, Leighton hegan work on the picture with which he was to draw public attention to himself for the first time. This was 'Cimabue's "Madonna" carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence,' now in Buckingham Palace. It was at the academy in 1855, and was bought by Queen Victoria for 600l. After a happy and triumphant season in London, Leighton went to Paris, where he came under the spell of yet another quasi genius in Robert Fleury. On his return to London in 1858, he became intimate with the members, then shaking apart, of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, an intimacy to which perhaps we owe the famous drawings of 'A Lemon Tree' and 'A Byzantine Well-head,' which drew such inevitable praise from [q. v. Suppl.] The 'Lemon Tree' drawing was made in Capri in 1859. In 1860 Leighton established himself at '2 Orme Square, Bayswater, which remained his home until he moved into his famous house in Holland Park Road. Between 1860 and 1866 he was a steady exhibitor at the Royal Academy, his chief contributions being 'Paolo and Francesca,' 'The Odalisque,' 'Dante at Verona,' 'Orpheus and Eurydice,' 'Golden Hours,' and 'A Syracusan Bride leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Temple of Diana.' In 1866 he was elected an A.R.A., and immediately justified his election by exhibiting his 'Venus disrobing for the Bath,' an essay in the nude which perhaps he never excelled. This year, 1866, was an eventful one in his career, for it saw his migration to the fine house in Holland Park Road, Kensington, which was built for him by Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., and also the completion of his fine wall-painting in Lyndhurst church, 'The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins.'

In 1868 Leighton made the Nile tour in company with Lesseps, who was then nearing the conclusion of his own great work. This journey led to a little dabbling in oriental subjects, which, however, took no great hold on his imagination. In 1869 he was elected a royal academician, exhibiting 'Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon' and 'Dædalus and Icarus,' and painting a St. Jerome as his diploma picture. In 1870 the winter exhibitions, which owed much to his advocacy, were started at Burlington House. The two succeeding summer exhibitions contained three of Leighton's best pictures, the 'Hercules wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis,' 'The Condottiere,' and 'The Summer Moon.' In 1873 he paid a second visit to the East, the outcome of which was a series of oriental pictures, 'The Egyptian Slinger' and 'The Moorish Garden' being perhaps the best. The creation by which, in some quarters, Leighton is best known had its origin in this eastern tour. He collected a number of fine Persian tiles, and was smitten with the desire to make appropriate use of them. Hence the famous Arab hall in his house at Kensington. To the next few years belong some of his best pictures, e.g. the 'Daphnephoria' and the 'Portrait of Sir Richard Burton'(1876), 'The Music Lesson' (1877), 'Winding the Skein,' and 'Nausicaa' (1878). In 1877 he burst on the world as a sculptor, exhibiting the ' Athlete struggling with a Python,' which is now in the gallery at Millbank.

In 1878 Sir [q. v.] died, and Leighton succeeded him as president of the Royal Academy, the usual knighthood following his election (25 Nov. 1878). As president he completely realised the hopes of his friends. Punctual almost to a fault, tactful, energetic, and equal to every social demand that could be made upon him, he filled the office with extraordinary distinction in the eyes both of his fellow-countrymen and of strangers. And yet the years which followed his election were among the most prolific of his artistic career. Between 1878 and 1895, when his activity was abruptly closed by disease, he painted the two fine wall-pictures in the Victoria and Albert Museum; he completed his second statue, 'The Sluggard,' which now stands at Millbank as a pendant to the 'Athlete with a Python,' as well as a charming statuette, 'Needless Alarms,' which he presented to Sir John Millais; and sent the following pictures, among others, to the exhibition of the Royal Academy: 'Biondina' (1879), 'Portrait of Signor Costa' and 'Sister's Kiss' (1880), his own portrait for the Uffizi (1881); 'Wedded,' 'Daydreams,' and 'Phryne at Eleusis' (1882),' 'Cymon and Iphigenia' (1884), 'Portrait of 'Lady Sybil Primrose' (1885), 'The Last Watch of Hero' (1887), 'Captive Andromache' (1888), 'Greek Girls playing Ball' (1889),