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Michelangelo Maestri (c.1741-1812), The Clumber Maestris: A Pair of Bacchantes
Michelangelo Maestri (c.1741-1812)
The Clumber Maestris: A Pair of Bacchantes, after frescoes from the Villa of Cicero, Pompei
c.1790
Pastel on paper
23 ½ x 17 ¼
Provenance
In the collection of Henry Pelham-Clinton, seventh Duke of Newcastle (1864-1928) at Clumber House, Nottinghamshire, by 1885;
By descent within the family, Clumber House, Nottinghamshire;
Christie’s, London, Pictures by Old Masters, 4 June 1937, lot 5 (as J. E. Liotard, Two Female Models, in white drapery – a pair), where purchased for £11.11 (Christie's stencils verso);
The van Zuylen van Nijevelt van de Haar family;
Until acquired privately therefrom by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2025.
Note
This exquisite pair of pastels by Michelangelo Maestri (c.1741-1812), as remarkable for their condition as for their provenance, depicts two full-length female figures – bacchantes, those followers of Bacchus who went about with him in song and dance. Presented poised against a black background, they move in dance, one to the left, the other to the right, their loose garments flowing about them with the rhythm of revelry.
The designs for these figures derive from two in a series of twelve frescoes uncovered in the triclinium of the so-called Villa of Cicero in Pompei on the 18th of January 1749 [1] and correspond to those now in the Museo Archelogico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. 9297). Writing about these figures in 1762, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) praised them for being ‘flüchtig wie ein Gedanke, und schön wie von der Hand der Gratien ausgeführet’ [2] – that is, as fluid as thought and as beautiful as if executed by the hands of the Graces. It was in this spirit of artistic wonderment that the discoveries made in Pompei and Herculaneum in the eighteenth century attracted painters, poets, sculptors, and scholars.[3] As Rosaria Ciardiello explains, it is Winckelmann who can largely be credited with the widespread popularisation and dissemination of the discoveries at these sites, none more so than the designs of the danzatrici – dancers – in the Villa of Cicero, which became a central motif in Neoclassical aesthetics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[4] Reproductions of these designs grew quickly in popularity, particularly among those on the Grand Tour, and artists such as Maestri worked to cater for this market.
In the present pair, Maestri captured the figures’ grace of form and refinement of line, splendidly reproducing the character of the Third Style of Pompeiian painting (c.15 B.C.-50 A.D.), a period distinguished by its figurative and ornamental elegance. The figures move lightly and deftly through space, their white dresses loose, ungirt, and billowing behind them. They are identifiable as bacchantes by their costume, though subtle differences in detail distinguish one from the other in point of character.[5] For instance, the dancer with cymbals wears the characteristic crown of ivy, while her counterpart wears one of cornstalks. Instead of cymbals, too, the latter holds a tray in her left hand and a basket in her right, perhaps performing the cernophorum, a dance in which participants held cups and other vessels.[6]
Collection labels and inventory tags on the verso of both frames reveal that the present pair was once part of what was one of the most significant collections of art in England, that of the dukes of Newcastle at Clumber House in Nottinghamshire. As Leonard Jacks put it, in his 1881 survey of the great houses of that county, ‘Perhaps no home of title in the whole country is so well known as Clumber […] a house which for size and situation can hold its own with any of those other palaces that are occupied by the wealthy of this land, and treasures the like of which the riches of England would not purchase.'[7] Indeed, among its paintings, the collection boasted great works by Titian, Van Dyck, and Andrea del Sarto. Accordingly, Jacks went on to say, ‘Among the pleasure-houses of England, very few can rival Clumber in pictorial and sculptural wealth.'[8]
It is unknown how or when the present pair came to be at Clumber. But it is possible that Henry Pelham-Clinton, fourth Duke of Newcastle (1785-1851), a contemporary of Maestri’s, purchased them while abroad between 1803-1806. This theory is, however, called somewhat into question given the Duke’s detainment at Tours for the majority of this period as a result of the collapse of the Peace of Amiens and the resumption of hostilities between Britain and France. Nevertheless, based on surviving inventories of Clumber House, the pair was certainly in the Newcastle collection by 1885. Furthermore, it is likely they hung in the Lincoln Sitting Room, forming part of a large group of pastels, all depicting similar female figures.[9] This suggestion is strengthened by descriptions of the other pictures in this room. Aside from an engraving of Charles I and a portrait of a soldier, the Lincoln Sitting Room was comprised of a pair of pastels of cupids, seven drawings of ancient buildings and landscapes, four mythological scenes, and one Roman scene.[10] This points to a broad thematic unity in the decoration of this room with most of the pictures depicting Classical subjects. In light of this, one can begin to imagine a room in which the grace and elegance of decoration found in a Pompeiian villa had been transposed into the setting of a nineteenth-century English stately home.
After the death of the seventh Duke of Newcastle in 1928, the house was closed. To cover debts, its contents were sold at various auctions in 1937, and the house was subsequently demolished the following year. The present pair was attributed erroneously to the eighteenth-century pastellist, Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702-1789).[11] The Clumber Maestris, however, are exceptional examples of Maestri working on a relatively large scale and form an important part of his extant oeuvre.
Footnotes
[1] Ottavio Antonio Baiardi, The Antiquities of Herculaneum, trans. by Thomas Martyn and John Lettice (London: S. Leacroft, 1773), p. 77
[2] Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Sendschreiben von den herculanischen Entdeckungen (Dresden: George Conrad Walther, 1762), p. 30
[3] See, for example, Antonio Canova, Dancer, 1809-1812, marble, Bode-Museum, Berlin.
[4] Rosaria Ciardiello, ‘Influenza, ricezione e fortuna delle decorazioni dalla Villa di Cicerone a Pompei’, Rivista di Studi Pompeiani, 30 (2019), pp. 79-90 (p. 82)
[5] See, for example, Euripides, The Bacchae, trans. by Gilbert Murray (London: George Allen, 1906), p. 10 – ‘[…] a band of fifteen Eastern Women, the light of the sunrise streaming upon their long white robes and ivy-bound hair. They wear fawn-skins over their robes, and carry some of them trimbels, some pipes and other instruments.’
[6] Baiardi, The Antiquities of Herculaneum, p. 99
[7] Leonard Jacks, The Great Houses of Nottinghamshire and the County Families (Nottingham: W. and A. S. Bradshaw, 1881), p. 42
[8] Ibid., p. 44
[9] Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSS), Ne 6 | 1/6, ‘Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Plated Articles, Linen, China, Glass, Articles of Vertu, etc, contained in Clumber House…’, 1885, p. 82
[10] Ibid.
[11] Christie’s, Pictures by Old Masters: 4 June 1937, lot 5
The Clumber Maestris: A Pair of Bacchantes, after frescoes from the Villa of Cicero, Pompei
c.1790
Pastel on paper
23 ½ x 17 ¼
Provenance
In the collection of Henry Pelham-Clinton, seventh Duke of Newcastle (1864-1928) at Clumber House, Nottinghamshire, by 1885;
By descent within the family, Clumber House, Nottinghamshire;
Christie’s, London, Pictures by Old Masters, 4 June 1937, lot 5 (as J. E. Liotard, Two Female Models, in white drapery – a pair), where purchased for £11.11 (Christie's stencils verso);
The van Zuylen van Nijevelt van de Haar family;
Until acquired privately therefrom by Whiteman’s Fine Art, 2025.
Note
This exquisite pair of pastels by Michelangelo Maestri (c.1741-1812), as remarkable for their condition as for their provenance, depicts two full-length female figures – bacchantes, those followers of Bacchus who went about with him in song and dance. Presented poised against a black background, they move in dance, one to the left, the other to the right, their loose garments flowing about them with the rhythm of revelry.
The designs for these figures derive from two in a series of twelve frescoes uncovered in the triclinium of the so-called Villa of Cicero in Pompei on the 18th of January 1749 [1] and correspond to those now in the Museo Archelogico Nazionale di Napoli (inv. 9297). Writing about these figures in 1762, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) praised them for being ‘flüchtig wie ein Gedanke, und schön wie von der Hand der Gratien ausgeführet’ [2] – that is, as fluid as thought and as beautiful as if executed by the hands of the Graces. It was in this spirit of artistic wonderment that the discoveries made in Pompei and Herculaneum in the eighteenth century attracted painters, poets, sculptors, and scholars.[3] As Rosaria Ciardiello explains, it is Winckelmann who can largely be credited with the widespread popularisation and dissemination of the discoveries at these sites, none more so than the designs of the danzatrici – dancers – in the Villa of Cicero, which became a central motif in Neoclassical aesthetics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.[4] Reproductions of these designs grew quickly in popularity, particularly among those on the Grand Tour, and artists such as Maestri worked to cater for this market.
In the present pair, Maestri captured the figures’ grace of form and refinement of line, splendidly reproducing the character of the Third Style of Pompeiian painting (c.15 B.C.-50 A.D.), a period distinguished by its figurative and ornamental elegance. The figures move lightly and deftly through space, their white dresses loose, ungirt, and billowing behind them. They are identifiable as bacchantes by their costume, though subtle differences in detail distinguish one from the other in point of character.[5] For instance, the dancer with cymbals wears the characteristic crown of ivy, while her counterpart wears one of cornstalks. Instead of cymbals, too, the latter holds a tray in her left hand and a basket in her right, perhaps performing the cernophorum, a dance in which participants held cups and other vessels.[6]
Collection labels and inventory tags on the verso of both frames reveal that the present pair was once part of what was one of the most significant collections of art in England, that of the dukes of Newcastle at Clumber House in Nottinghamshire. As Leonard Jacks put it, in his 1881 survey of the great houses of that county, ‘Perhaps no home of title in the whole country is so well known as Clumber […] a house which for size and situation can hold its own with any of those other palaces that are occupied by the wealthy of this land, and treasures the like of which the riches of England would not purchase.'[7] Indeed, among its paintings, the collection boasted great works by Titian, Van Dyck, and Andrea del Sarto. Accordingly, Jacks went on to say, ‘Among the pleasure-houses of England, very few can rival Clumber in pictorial and sculptural wealth.'[8]
It is unknown how or when the present pair came to be at Clumber. But it is possible that Henry Pelham-Clinton, fourth Duke of Newcastle (1785-1851), a contemporary of Maestri’s, purchased them while abroad between 1803-1806. This theory is, however, called somewhat into question given the Duke’s detainment at Tours for the majority of this period as a result of the collapse of the Peace of Amiens and the resumption of hostilities between Britain and France. Nevertheless, based on surviving inventories of Clumber House, the pair was certainly in the Newcastle collection by 1885. Furthermore, it is likely they hung in the Lincoln Sitting Room, forming part of a large group of pastels, all depicting similar female figures.[9] This suggestion is strengthened by descriptions of the other pictures in this room. Aside from an engraving of Charles I and a portrait of a soldier, the Lincoln Sitting Room was comprised of a pair of pastels of cupids, seven drawings of ancient buildings and landscapes, four mythological scenes, and one Roman scene.[10] This points to a broad thematic unity in the decoration of this room with most of the pictures depicting Classical subjects. In light of this, one can begin to imagine a room in which the grace and elegance of decoration found in a Pompeiian villa had been transposed into the setting of a nineteenth-century English stately home.
After the death of the seventh Duke of Newcastle in 1928, the house was closed. To cover debts, its contents were sold at various auctions in 1937, and the house was subsequently demolished the following year. The present pair was attributed erroneously to the eighteenth-century pastellist, Jean-Étienne Liotard (1702-1789).[11] The Clumber Maestris, however, are exceptional examples of Maestri working on a relatively large scale and form an important part of his extant oeuvre.
Footnotes
[1] Ottavio Antonio Baiardi, The Antiquities of Herculaneum, trans. by Thomas Martyn and John Lettice (London: S. Leacroft, 1773), p. 77
[2] Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Sendschreiben von den herculanischen Entdeckungen (Dresden: George Conrad Walther, 1762), p. 30
[3] See, for example, Antonio Canova, Dancer, 1809-1812, marble, Bode-Museum, Berlin.
[4] Rosaria Ciardiello, ‘Influenza, ricezione e fortuna delle decorazioni dalla Villa di Cicerone a Pompei’, Rivista di Studi Pompeiani, 30 (2019), pp. 79-90 (p. 82)
[5] See, for example, Euripides, The Bacchae, trans. by Gilbert Murray (London: George Allen, 1906), p. 10 – ‘[…] a band of fifteen Eastern Women, the light of the sunrise streaming upon their long white robes and ivy-bound hair. They wear fawn-skins over their robes, and carry some of them trimbels, some pipes and other instruments.’
[6] Baiardi, The Antiquities of Herculaneum, p. 99
[7] Leonard Jacks, The Great Houses of Nottinghamshire and the County Families (Nottingham: W. and A. S. Bradshaw, 1881), p. 42
[8] Ibid., p. 44
[9] Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSS), Ne 6 | 1/6, ‘Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Plated Articles, Linen, China, Glass, Articles of Vertu, etc, contained in Clumber House…’, 1885, p. 82
[10] Ibid.
[11] Christie’s, Pictures by Old Masters: 4 June 1937, lot 5
En Deuil Blanc Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
English School
‘En Deuil Blanc’ Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
Oil-on-panel
14 x 10 in.
c.1600
Provenance
Christie’s, South Kensington, November, 2011;
Private collection, United Kingdom;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, acquired from the above, 2025.
Note
Mary Queen of Scots was destined to be a royal martyr for Catholics, Scots, and the House of Stuart. One of Britain’s most iconic historical figures of whom portrayals abound from every century since her execution in 1587, Mary would herself presciently write ‘in the end is my beginning.’ The famous ‘en deuil blanc’ (in white mourning) portrait-type, of which the present work numbers, was first painted by the French court artist, François Clouet, in c.1560-1 when the queen wore white mourning dress in the French fashion following the deaths of her father-in-law, Henri II of France, her French mother, Mary of Guise, in Scotland, and finally her husband King François II [1]. Although this finely modelled portrait may have been painted during the Queen’s lifetime, this powerful image critically seemed to many in hindsight to capture the tragedy which later befell her. It is probably therefore an exceptionally rare survival of the en deuil blanc painted in the wake of her execution by the English Crown. With the Scottish Lion Rampant quartered with the fleur-de-lis prominently blazoned, the portrait may be placed within Mary’s extraordinary visual hagiography as an important early example.
The portrait is executed in the lively Tudor tradition epitomised by William Scrots and worked by native artists, with which not only the style but the relatively small size of the panel and tight craquelure (particularly notable in the face), as well as the subtle underdrawings revealed by infra-red photography, are consistent [2]. We are grateful to Dr. Adam Busiakiewicz (Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s) for his analysis, confirming that the sitter of the portrait is Mary, Queen of Scots, based upon the prototype in the Royal Collection, and that the portrait dates to the close of the sixteenth century and was thus poignantly painted during the reign of Mary’s first cousin and final sentencer, Elizabeth I [3].
[1] RCIN 403429 (Mary, Queen of Scots' Bedchamber, Palace of Holyroodhouse).
[2] This is in contradistinction to the often large and romantic later works that did much to familiarise her likeness. The dearth of sixteenth century portraits which certainly depict Mary Queen of Scots outside of institutional collections is notable, the last example being acquired by Hever Castle in 2019.
[3] Ian Tyres (Dedrochronolgoical Consultancy Limited), the scientific authority on panel supports, has been consulted regarding the portrait (28.7.2025). Despite its evident antiquity Tyres concluded the panel cannot be subjected to dendrochronological analysis due to the occlusion of tree rings caused by the wood being ‘very fast grown’ / ‘cut at an acute tangential angle.’
‘En Deuil Blanc’ Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87)
Oil-on-panel
14 x 10 in.
c.1600
Provenance
Christie’s, South Kensington, November, 2011;
Private collection, United Kingdom;
Whiteman’s Fine Art, acquired from the above, 2025.
Note
Mary Queen of Scots was destined to be a royal martyr for Catholics, Scots, and the House of Stuart. One of Britain’s most iconic historical figures of whom portrayals abound from every century since her execution in 1587, Mary would herself presciently write ‘in the end is my beginning.’ The famous ‘en deuil blanc’ (in white mourning) portrait-type, of which the present work numbers, was first painted by the French court artist, François Clouet, in c.1560-1 when the queen wore white mourning dress in the French fashion following the deaths of her father-in-law, Henri II of France, her French mother, Mary of Guise, in Scotland, and finally her husband King François II [1]. Although this finely modelled portrait may have been painted during the Queen’s lifetime, this powerful image critically seemed to many in hindsight to capture the tragedy which later befell her. It is probably therefore an exceptionally rare survival of the en deuil blanc painted in the wake of her execution by the English Crown. With the Scottish Lion Rampant quartered with the fleur-de-lis prominently blazoned, the portrait may be placed within Mary’s extraordinary visual hagiography as an important early example.
The portrait is executed in the lively Tudor tradition epitomised by William Scrots and worked by native artists, with which not only the style but the relatively small size of the panel and tight craquelure (particularly notable in the face), as well as the subtle underdrawings revealed by infra-red photography, are consistent [2]. We are grateful to Dr. Adam Busiakiewicz (Consultant for Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s) for his analysis, confirming that the sitter of the portrait is Mary, Queen of Scots, based upon the prototype in the Royal Collection, and that the portrait dates to the close of the sixteenth century and was thus poignantly painted during the reign of Mary’s first cousin and final sentencer, Elizabeth I [3].
[1] RCIN 403429 (Mary, Queen of Scots' Bedchamber, Palace of Holyroodhouse).
[2] This is in contradistinction to the often large and romantic later works that did much to familiarise her likeness. The dearth of sixteenth century portraits which certainly depict Mary Queen of Scots outside of institutional collections is notable, the last example being acquired by Hever Castle in 2019.
[3] Ian Tyres (Dedrochronolgoical Consultancy Limited), the scientific authority on panel supports, has been consulted regarding the portrait (28.7.2025). Despite its evident antiquity Tyres concluded the panel cannot be subjected to dendrochronological analysis due to the occlusion of tree rings caused by the wood being ‘very fast grown’ / ‘cut at an acute tangential angle.’
Studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen, c.1678
Studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680)
Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen
Oil on canvas
20⅞ x 16¾ in.
c.1678
Provenance
Capt. H. A. N. Forte of Polock, West Somerset;
Christie’s, 21st February, 1913, Lot 52;
Christie’s, 24th March, 1922, Lot 93;
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
We are pleased to offer a rare bust length portrait of Lady Anne Stuart (1665-1714), later Queen (1702-1714), from the studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) [1]. Lely was the foremost portrait painter to the English Court, and the leading painter of the restoration period. Praised especially for his portraits of female sitters, this work recalls Lely’s famous Windsor Beauties through the use of weighty backing drapes and dresses of sumptuous silk, glowing through the depiction of light and shadow. The full-length version of Lely’s painting ‘Queen Anne when a child’, c.1678 was known through mezzotint engravings produced in the seventeenth century, but was only rediscovered in a private collection in 2003 [2] (see figs. 1. & 2.). The present work is the only other known version of the full portrait and shows a cropped composition with slight alterations. David A. H. B. Taylor, the co-author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Lely who rediscovered the larger version, has argued that the present ‘smaller picture may have been produced before the larger picture, or simultaneously, and they wouldn’t necessarily be an identical match in terms of modelling and details of clothes.’ And, firmly placing the work within the artist’s studio, Taylor observed ‘good painting in areas such as the modelling of the curls of Anne’s hair’ [3] If this portrait was painted first, it is possible that Peter Lely would have had a direct hand in both its composition and execution, producing a bust more closely relating to the life usable as a preparatory work for the larger version. This would be consonant with Lely’s studio practice of painting the head himself and leaving the drapery and further attributes to his assistants. The quality of the brushstrokes around the face are indicative of this, as well as the work being left unfinished, in turn revealing the delicate modelling. This has arguably created a more lively and direct countenance than in the larger worked up version.
This compelling work shows the youthful Lady Anne in profile and is of particularly high quality. Given the sitter’s age and the suggestively sensuous manner in which it has been painted, it is likely that the work was produced to promote Anne for marriage: her porcelain-pale skin and high forehead mark Anne as a woman of aristocratic dignity, whilst rosy, rounded cheeks are filled with life and speak to her vitality [4]. Chestnut ringlets are beautifully modelled with naturalistic skill in the fashionable ‘hurly-burly’ style, which was fashionable in contemporary royal commissions [5]. Tones of red are reflected in the perimeters of Anne’s hair, repeated in the claret curtain and the rubies which wind around the sitter’s shoulder, creating a pyramidal form which frames and focuses on Anne’s face and delicate features. Further, Anne’s purity and innocence, and therefore her virginity, are attested to by the pearls which adorn the finely modelled neckline of her lilac gown. Dashes of lighter paint are utilised to make these adorning pearls, rubies and gemstones glitter and glint alongside Anne’s intelligent gaze which is enlivened with a mimetic yet subtle speck of white, which reflects the light behind the painter. The classicising drape of red curtain and the silhouetted leaves find completion in the full-length portrait, as an unfinished wreath and large ewer are introduced. This imagery speaks to iconographical promotion of Lady Anne as an educated, eligible and demonstrably impressive young woman, utilising a visual language which was being modelled as a contemporary alternative to the traditional Catholic imagery. This portrait therefore ‘serves to promote Anne as a future wife and mother of Protestant heirs for the Stuarts’ [6].
Anne would be married on the 28th of July 1683 to Prince George of Denmark. Anne was the second daughter of the Catholic King James II & VII who was denounced by many of his Protestant subjects as a tyrant. Following her brother-in-law’s invasion and James’s flight to France, William and Mary were jointly crowned. Upon their deaths Anne succeeded the throne in 1702 not by traditional hereditary right – her brother-in-law was pretending to the title of ‘James III’ in France – but by parliamentary statute law ratified in the ‘revolution settlement.’ The revolution severely limited the power of the monarchy and Anne reigned as a parliamentary, or ‘constitutional,’ monarch. She most notably oversaw the legislative union of England and Scotland as Great Britain and the Peace of Utrecht, both of which cemented the country’s future pre-eminence.
The portrait closely resembles Sir Peter Lely's 'Study for a Portrait of a Woman' from the 1670s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (06.1198) in execution, suggesting that the present picture may be a preparatory study of the larger worked up version recently published in the Burlington Magazine.
Whiteman’s Fine Art gives thanks to David A. H. B. Taylor for his insightful comments regarding this work.
Notes
1 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence based on high resolution images of the artwork, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
2 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4; Engraving by Richard Tompson, 33 x 25 cm.
3 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
4 4 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4: p. 501.
5 As in the portrait of Anne’s older sister: Sir Peter Lely’s Mary II (1662-94), when Princess of Orange, c.1677. Oil on canvas, 126.0 x 102.3 cm. Royal Collection: Chatsworth Room, Hampton Court Palace, RCIN 40258.
6 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
Figures
Fig. 1. After Peter Lely, Queen Anne when a child, c.1678-79. Mezzotint. 33 x 24.9 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Fig.2. Sir Peter Lely, Queen Anne, when a child, c. 1678. Oil-on-canvas. 123.2 x 97.8 cm. (Private collection)
Fig. 3. Sir Peter Lely, Study for a Portrait of a Woman, c.1670s. Oil-on-canvas. 67.3 x 53.7 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1198)
Portrait of Lady Anne (1665–1714), later Queen
Oil on canvas
20⅞ x 16¾ in.
c.1678
Provenance
Capt. H. A. N. Forte of Polock, West Somerset;
Christie’s, 21st February, 1913, Lot 52;
Christie’s, 24th March, 1922, Lot 93;
Private Collection, United Kingdom.
We are pleased to offer a rare bust length portrait of Lady Anne Stuart (1665-1714), later Queen (1702-1714), from the studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) [1]. Lely was the foremost portrait painter to the English Court, and the leading painter of the restoration period. Praised especially for his portraits of female sitters, this work recalls Lely’s famous Windsor Beauties through the use of weighty backing drapes and dresses of sumptuous silk, glowing through the depiction of light and shadow. The full-length version of Lely’s painting ‘Queen Anne when a child’, c.1678 was known through mezzotint engravings produced in the seventeenth century, but was only rediscovered in a private collection in 2003 [2] (see figs. 1. & 2.). The present work is the only other known version of the full portrait and shows a cropped composition with slight alterations. David A. H. B. Taylor, the co-author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Lely who rediscovered the larger version, has argued that the present ‘smaller picture may have been produced before the larger picture, or simultaneously, and they wouldn’t necessarily be an identical match in terms of modelling and details of clothes.’ And, firmly placing the work within the artist’s studio, Taylor observed ‘good painting in areas such as the modelling of the curls of Anne’s hair’ [3] If this portrait was painted first, it is possible that Peter Lely would have had a direct hand in both its composition and execution, producing a bust more closely relating to the life usable as a preparatory work for the larger version. This would be consonant with Lely’s studio practice of painting the head himself and leaving the drapery and further attributes to his assistants. The quality of the brushstrokes around the face are indicative of this, as well as the work being left unfinished, in turn revealing the delicate modelling. This has arguably created a more lively and direct countenance than in the larger worked up version.
This compelling work shows the youthful Lady Anne in profile and is of particularly high quality. Given the sitter’s age and the suggestively sensuous manner in which it has been painted, it is likely that the work was produced to promote Anne for marriage: her porcelain-pale skin and high forehead mark Anne as a woman of aristocratic dignity, whilst rosy, rounded cheeks are filled with life and speak to her vitality [4]. Chestnut ringlets are beautifully modelled with naturalistic skill in the fashionable ‘hurly-burly’ style, which was fashionable in contemporary royal commissions [5]. Tones of red are reflected in the perimeters of Anne’s hair, repeated in the claret curtain and the rubies which wind around the sitter’s shoulder, creating a pyramidal form which frames and focuses on Anne’s face and delicate features. Further, Anne’s purity and innocence, and therefore her virginity, are attested to by the pearls which adorn the finely modelled neckline of her lilac gown. Dashes of lighter paint are utilised to make these adorning pearls, rubies and gemstones glitter and glint alongside Anne’s intelligent gaze which is enlivened with a mimetic yet subtle speck of white, which reflects the light behind the painter. The classicising drape of red curtain and the silhouetted leaves find completion in the full-length portrait, as an unfinished wreath and large ewer are introduced. This imagery speaks to iconographical promotion of Lady Anne as an educated, eligible and demonstrably impressive young woman, utilising a visual language which was being modelled as a contemporary alternative to the traditional Catholic imagery. This portrait therefore ‘serves to promote Anne as a future wife and mother of Protestant heirs for the Stuarts’ [6].
Anne would be married on the 28th of July 1683 to Prince George of Denmark. Anne was the second daughter of the Catholic King James II & VII who was denounced by many of his Protestant subjects as a tyrant. Following her brother-in-law’s invasion and James’s flight to France, William and Mary were jointly crowned. Upon their deaths Anne succeeded the throne in 1702 not by traditional hereditary right – her brother-in-law was pretending to the title of ‘James III’ in France – but by parliamentary statute law ratified in the ‘revolution settlement.’ The revolution severely limited the power of the monarchy and Anne reigned as a parliamentary, or ‘constitutional,’ monarch. She most notably oversaw the legislative union of England and Scotland as Great Britain and the Peace of Utrecht, both of which cemented the country’s future pre-eminence.
The portrait closely resembles Sir Peter Lely's 'Study for a Portrait of a Woman' from the 1670s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (06.1198) in execution, suggesting that the present picture may be a preparatory study of the larger worked up version recently published in the Burlington Magazine.
Whiteman’s Fine Art gives thanks to David A. H. B. Taylor for his insightful comments regarding this work.
Notes
1 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence based on high resolution images of the artwork, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
2 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4; Engraving by Richard Tompson, 33 x 25 cm.
3 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
4 4 David A. H. B. Taylor, “A Rediscovered Portrait of Queen Anne, When a Child, by Sir Peter Lely,” The Burlington Magazine 145, no. 1204 (July 2003): 501–4: p. 501.
5 As in the portrait of Anne’s older sister: Sir Peter Lely’s Mary II (1662-94), when Princess of Orange, c.1677. Oil on canvas, 126.0 x 102.3 cm. Royal Collection: Chatsworth Room, Hampton Court Palace, RCIN 40258.
6 David A. H. B. Taylor email correspondence, Tuesday 12th November 2024.
Figures
Fig. 1. After Peter Lely, Queen Anne when a child, c.1678-79. Mezzotint. 33 x 24.9 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Fig.2. Sir Peter Lely, Queen Anne, when a child, c. 1678. Oil-on-canvas. 123.2 x 97.8 cm. (Private collection)
Fig. 3. Sir Peter Lely, Study for a Portrait of a Woman, c.1670s. Oil-on-canvas. 67.3 x 53.7 cm. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.1198)
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896), Studies for Captive Andromache, c.1888
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896)
Studies for Captive Andromache
With the artist studio stamp (Lugt 1741a) (lower left); inscribed 'Andromache' (lower right)
c.1888
Charcoal and white chalk on buff paper laid down on card
10 x 13.7/8 in. (26.6 x 35.2 cm.)
Provenance
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (no. 29773) (label verso);
With Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (label verso);
With Christopher Wood, London, 7th January 2003 (label verso; sales receipt included);
With Martin Beisly Fine Art, London (label verso);
Private Collection, Belgravia, London.
Exhibited
London, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art, 1840-1920, Autumn 1998.
Literature
Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton (1975) no. 334.
This preparatory drawing for Leighton’s 1888 Captive Andromache offers a rare opportunity to own a piece of the material history of a masterpiece. Captive Andromache (Fig.1), at over four metres in length, is the largest work of Leighton’s late period, and has been called the ‘last and greatest of Leighton’s great processional paintings’ [1]. The painting was purchased by Manchester Art Gallery for £4000 in 1888 – a record price for a Leighton painting during his lifetime. The painting remains in the Manchester collection, whilst Leighton’s first major work, Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna, was purchased by Queen Victoria and is now held in the National Gallery, London.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896) spent his early years in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, being educated from 16 at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, where he was tutored by Eduard von Steinle [2]. Leighton is remarkable in having received a complete education in continental Europe, where most of his contemporaries only spent a year [3]. This may be observed in his flair for depicting classical subjects in academic style. In this accomplished preparatory drawing, Leighton studies the female form alongside a Greek storage jar. His focus is on the torsion within a figure, paused in motion whilst holding these vases. By the completion of the final work, the pottery has changed into specific pelikai (or kalpis [4],) and hydriai [5], with scenes delineated in both red and black figure styles. The final vases reference specific examples in the British museum collection, some which had been recently acquired. Yet it is possible that Leighton observed them from secondary sources during his drawing [6]. Ian Jenkins notes that, when rendering the vases, his living models likely posed with ‘whatever was to hand among the bric-à-brac of Leighton House’ [7].
Classical references can be seen in this drawing’s deeply delineated al antica drapery which reflects Leighton’s ‘increasingly sculptural style’ [8], which sought to reiterate the ‘ideal beauty inspired by Classical statuary… to resurrect past epochs of artistic achievement and an academic working-method associated with the “Old Masters”’ [9]. This ideal beauty coincides with an attention to naturalism as in this drawing the artist utilises white chalk to mark the play of highlights, which cascade across the classical drapery [10], situating the figures in the physical space of the viewer- and yet just out of reach. This sense of a liminal longing is expanded on in the final painting. Leighton was inspired by Homer’s Iliad and centres the present work around Andromache, former wife of the Trojan hero Hector killed in the Trojan war. Subsequently captured by the Greeks, she became the concubine of the conquering Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. The final work depicts her arrival in Epirus, and Leighton’s rendering of her mournful figure dressed in black contrasts with the vibrant frieze of colourfully clothed people surrounding her, including the figures drawn here, thus indicating Andromache’s isolation. In a typically Greek reversal of fortune, Andromache is reduced to the humble status of a water bearer, the occupation studied within the present work. Leighton’s treatment of Andromache is arresting: with her head bowed, she looks silently towards the baby to the bottom right of the painting, observing what she could have had and yet completely alienated from the warmth of the interaction before her. This sense of sadness was evidenced in 1888, when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy [11], accompanied by lines from Leighton’s friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, contemporary translation of the Iliad: Some standing by, Marking thy tears fall, shall say ‘This is she, The wife of that same Hector that fought best Of all the Trojans when all fought for Troy’ [12].
This work bears, on the reverse, the artist’s studio stamp (lower left) and the inscription ‘Andromache’ (lower right). These studies offer fascinating insights into the artist’s process. The left-most figure (Fig.2), depicted leaning over a vase with an arm outstretched, is visible on the far right of the final painting, clothed in orange with a hand pressed against the wall. The outline of the figure behind her is loosely sketched in the study. The right-hand figure wears brown drapery in the final painting, and stands between Andromache and the group of
women near the wall (Fig.3). The right-hand figure shown here is translated in the final work to stand just behind Andromache. This further evinces the ultimate importance of draughtsmanship to Leighton, as he places a firm focus on disegno in this work [13]. In this drawing, we can see several positions for the woman’s feet being worked through, in order to achieve the delightfully balanced contrapposto which is found in the painting. This technical excellence was well recognised by Leighton’s contemporaries: having moved to London in 1860, Leighton became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1864, an Academician from 1868, and was made president in 1878. In 1896, just a day before his death, he became Baron Leighton of Stretton – the first painter to be given a peerage. He was the ‘late Victorian period’s most institutionally powerful artist’ [14], and ‘an academic painter par excellence’ [15]. His draughtsmanship continues to be recognised, receiving significant attention in the touring exhibition of Leighton’s works in 2006-2008 [16]. Leighton attributed a great deal of importance to his drawings, some of which he displayed in his studio, and which he intended to be preserved [17]. A number of similar studies for Captive Andromache are housed in Manchester Art Gallery, including female figure studies holding vases (such as A.N. 1983.59 and A.N. 1977.166), and a male figure study (A.N. 1982.137) which displays the artist’s attention to muscle definition and the human form.
In Study for Captive Andromache, a fascinating allusion to materiality is made. The figure to the left shows Leighton perfecting the positioning of this figure, moving the head and the angle of the arm and feet to realise the position of the figure which can be found leaning against the wall to the right of the finished painting. This is, in the words of Christopher Newall, ‘expressed with fluent manual dexterity, and his impressive fecundity of invention, evident in the repeated variants tried and discarded’ [18] Similarly, this drawing with charcoal and chalk allows a rare glimpse of the artist’s hand. An interrogation of materiality is used to gesticulate the immateriality of this vision depicted. Charcoal and chalk become paint and then flesh, and yet the classicising drapery hints at sculptural, and even architectural detail [19]. This transience of material and creation mean that when following the delicate lines of this page, one can follow the artist’s thought process as we witness the creation of a masterpiece.
We would like to thank Professor Liz Prettejohn for her opinion on the present the work, which she deemed ‘a classic example to me, on brown paper (as is typical for drawings of this date) and obviously part of Leighton's preparatory work for Captive Andromache. [20]’
Notes
[1] Edward Morris, Public Art Collections in North-West England: A History and Guide (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001). Page 118.
[2] Leonee Ormond, 'Frederic Leighton and the Illustrations for Romola,' The George Eliot Review, no. 45 (2014): 50–56. Page 50.
[3] Christopher Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton (Phaidon Press, 1990). Page 9.
[4] Ian Jenkins, 'Frederic Lord Leighton and Greek Vases,' The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 967 (October 1983): 596–605. Page 598.
[5] ibid. Page 597.
[6] ibid. Page 598.
[7] ibid. Page 601.
[8] Karl Kilinski II, 'Frederic Leighton’s "Daedalus and Icarus": Antiquity, Topography and Idealised Enlightenment,' The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1237 (April 2006): 257–63. Page 257.
[9] Keren Rosa Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 1–14. Page 5, 3.
[10] Elizabeth Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' in Margot T. Brandlhuber and Michael Buhrs, eds., Frederic, Lord Leighton, 1830-1896 (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2009). Pages 35-77. Page 43.
[11] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Page 4.
[12] Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton. (1990). Page 116.
[13] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton" 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,' The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149; Christopher Newall, Leighton the Academic, in Stephen Jones and Royal Academy of Arts, Frederic, Lord Leighton: Eminent Victorian Artist (New York: H.N. Abrams; London, 1996). Pages 55-68. Page 62.
A related study is at the Leighton House Museum: Studies for 'Captive Andromache': Drapery for Female Figures, c.1887, Black and white chalk on brown paper, 52.4 x 37.0 cm, Leighton House Museum, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, reference number: LHO/D/0683, https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/lordleightonsdrawings/ldcollection/drawingrecord.asp?workid=1226.
[14] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Introduction.
[15] Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' (2009). Page 36.
[16] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton' 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,” The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149.
[17] Sally Woodcock, 'Leighton and Roberson: An Artist and His Colourman,' The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1121 (August 1996): 526–28. Page 527.
[18] Newall, Leighton the Academic. (1996). Pages 55-68. Page 64.
[19] Ciarán Rua O’Neill, 'Column Bodies: The Caryatid and Frederic Leighton’s Royal Academy Sketchbooks,' Sculpture Journal 25, no. 3 (2016): 421–32. Page 431, 423.
[20] Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn, email correspondence on having seen a digital copy of the work, Friday 8th November 2024. Professor Prettejohn further identified a similar piece with which to compare it, A sheet of studies for 'Captive Andromache', 10½ x 13¾ in. Christie’s, ‘Victorian and British Impressionist Art’, 15th June 2011, Lot 8.
Figures
Fig. 1. Captive Andromache, Frederic, Lord Leighton, c. 1888, oil on canvas, 77.1/2 × 160.1/4 in. Manchester Art Gallery.
Fig. 2. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Fig. 3. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Studies for Captive Andromache
With the artist studio stamp (Lugt 1741a) (lower left); inscribed 'Andromache' (lower right)
c.1888
Charcoal and white chalk on buff paper laid down on card
10 x 13.7/8 in. (26.6 x 35.2 cm.)
Provenance
With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (no. 29773) (label verso);
With Julian Hartnoll Gallery, London (label verso);
With Christopher Wood, London, 7th January 2003 (label verso; sales receipt included);
With Martin Beisly Fine Art, London (label verso);
Private Collection, Belgravia, London.
Exhibited
London, Shepherd Gallery, English Romantic Art, 1840-1920, Autumn 1998.
Literature
Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton (1975) no. 334.
This preparatory drawing for Leighton’s 1888 Captive Andromache offers a rare opportunity to own a piece of the material history of a masterpiece. Captive Andromache (Fig.1), at over four metres in length, is the largest work of Leighton’s late period, and has been called the ‘last and greatest of Leighton’s great processional paintings’ [1]. The painting was purchased by Manchester Art Gallery for £4000 in 1888 – a record price for a Leighton painting during his lifetime. The painting remains in the Manchester collection, whilst Leighton’s first major work, Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna, was purchased by Queen Victoria and is now held in the National Gallery, London.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896) spent his early years in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, being educated from 16 at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, where he was tutored by Eduard von Steinle [2]. Leighton is remarkable in having received a complete education in continental Europe, where most of his contemporaries only spent a year [3]. This may be observed in his flair for depicting classical subjects in academic style. In this accomplished preparatory drawing, Leighton studies the female form alongside a Greek storage jar. His focus is on the torsion within a figure, paused in motion whilst holding these vases. By the completion of the final work, the pottery has changed into specific pelikai (or kalpis [4],) and hydriai [5], with scenes delineated in both red and black figure styles. The final vases reference specific examples in the British museum collection, some which had been recently acquired. Yet it is possible that Leighton observed them from secondary sources during his drawing [6]. Ian Jenkins notes that, when rendering the vases, his living models likely posed with ‘whatever was to hand among the bric-à-brac of Leighton House’ [7].
Classical references can be seen in this drawing’s deeply delineated al antica drapery which reflects Leighton’s ‘increasingly sculptural style’ [8], which sought to reiterate the ‘ideal beauty inspired by Classical statuary… to resurrect past epochs of artistic achievement and an academic working-method associated with the “Old Masters”’ [9]. This ideal beauty coincides with an attention to naturalism as in this drawing the artist utilises white chalk to mark the play of highlights, which cascade across the classical drapery [10], situating the figures in the physical space of the viewer- and yet just out of reach. This sense of a liminal longing is expanded on in the final painting. Leighton was inspired by Homer’s Iliad and centres the present work around Andromache, former wife of the Trojan hero Hector killed in the Trojan war. Subsequently captured by the Greeks, she became the concubine of the conquering Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles. The final work depicts her arrival in Epirus, and Leighton’s rendering of her mournful figure dressed in black contrasts with the vibrant frieze of colourfully clothed people surrounding her, including the figures drawn here, thus indicating Andromache’s isolation. In a typically Greek reversal of fortune, Andromache is reduced to the humble status of a water bearer, the occupation studied within the present work. Leighton’s treatment of Andromache is arresting: with her head bowed, she looks silently towards the baby to the bottom right of the painting, observing what she could have had and yet completely alienated from the warmth of the interaction before her. This sense of sadness was evidenced in 1888, when the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy [11], accompanied by lines from Leighton’s friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's, contemporary translation of the Iliad: Some standing by, Marking thy tears fall, shall say ‘This is she, The wife of that same Hector that fought best Of all the Trojans when all fought for Troy’ [12].
This work bears, on the reverse, the artist’s studio stamp (lower left) and the inscription ‘Andromache’ (lower right). These studies offer fascinating insights into the artist’s process. The left-most figure (Fig.2), depicted leaning over a vase with an arm outstretched, is visible on the far right of the final painting, clothed in orange with a hand pressed against the wall. The outline of the figure behind her is loosely sketched in the study. The right-hand figure wears brown drapery in the final painting, and stands between Andromache and the group of
women near the wall (Fig.3). The right-hand figure shown here is translated in the final work to stand just behind Andromache. This further evinces the ultimate importance of draughtsmanship to Leighton, as he places a firm focus on disegno in this work [13]. In this drawing, we can see several positions for the woman’s feet being worked through, in order to achieve the delightfully balanced contrapposto which is found in the painting. This technical excellence was well recognised by Leighton’s contemporaries: having moved to London in 1860, Leighton became an associate of the Royal Academy in 1864, an Academician from 1868, and was made president in 1878. In 1896, just a day before his death, he became Baron Leighton of Stretton – the first painter to be given a peerage. He was the ‘late Victorian period’s most institutionally powerful artist’ [14], and ‘an academic painter par excellence’ [15]. His draughtsmanship continues to be recognised, receiving significant attention in the touring exhibition of Leighton’s works in 2006-2008 [16]. Leighton attributed a great deal of importance to his drawings, some of which he displayed in his studio, and which he intended to be preserved [17]. A number of similar studies for Captive Andromache are housed in Manchester Art Gallery, including female figure studies holding vases (such as A.N. 1983.59 and A.N. 1977.166), and a male figure study (A.N. 1982.137) which displays the artist’s attention to muscle definition and the human form.
In Study for Captive Andromache, a fascinating allusion to materiality is made. The figure to the left shows Leighton perfecting the positioning of this figure, moving the head and the angle of the arm and feet to realise the position of the figure which can be found leaning against the wall to the right of the finished painting. This is, in the words of Christopher Newall, ‘expressed with fluent manual dexterity, and his impressive fecundity of invention, evident in the repeated variants tried and discarded’ [18] Similarly, this drawing with charcoal and chalk allows a rare glimpse of the artist’s hand. An interrogation of materiality is used to gesticulate the immateriality of this vision depicted. Charcoal and chalk become paint and then flesh, and yet the classicising drapery hints at sculptural, and even architectural detail [19]. This transience of material and creation mean that when following the delicate lines of this page, one can follow the artist’s thought process as we witness the creation of a masterpiece.
We would like to thank Professor Liz Prettejohn for her opinion on the present the work, which she deemed ‘a classic example to me, on brown paper (as is typical for drawings of this date) and obviously part of Leighton's preparatory work for Captive Andromache. [20]’
Notes
[1] Edward Morris, Public Art Collections in North-West England: A History and Guide (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2001). Page 118.
[2] Leonee Ormond, 'Frederic Leighton and the Illustrations for Romola,' The George Eliot Review, no. 45 (2014): 50–56. Page 50.
[3] Christopher Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton (Phaidon Press, 1990). Page 9.
[4] Ian Jenkins, 'Frederic Lord Leighton and Greek Vases,' The Burlington Magazine 125, no. 967 (October 1983): 596–605. Page 598.
[5] ibid. Page 597.
[6] ibid. Page 598.
[7] ibid. Page 601.
[8] Karl Kilinski II, 'Frederic Leighton’s "Daedalus and Icarus": Antiquity, Topography and Idealised Enlightenment,' The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1237 (April 2006): 257–63. Page 257.
[9] Keren Rosa Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton: Death, Mortality, Resurrection (Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 1–14. Page 5, 3.
[10] Elizabeth Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' in Margot T. Brandlhuber and Michael Buhrs, eds., Frederic, Lord Leighton, 1830-1896 (Munich, Berlin, London, New York: Prestel, 2009). Pages 35-77. Page 43.
[11] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Page 4.
[12] Newall, The Art of Lord Leighton. (1990). Page 116.
[13] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton" 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,' The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149; Christopher Newall, Leighton the Academic, in Stephen Jones and Royal Academy of Arts, Frederic, Lord Leighton: Eminent Victorian Artist (New York: H.N. Abrams; London, 1996). Pages 55-68. Page 62.
A related study is at the Leighton House Museum: Studies for 'Captive Andromache': Drapery for Female Figures, c.1887, Black and white chalk on brown paper, 52.4 x 37.0 cm, Leighton House Museum, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, reference number: LHO/D/0683, https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/lordleightonsdrawings/ldcollection/drawingrecord.asp?workid=1226.
[14] Hammerschlag, Frederic Leighton. (2015). Introduction.
[15] Prettejohn, 'The Classicism of Frederic Leighton' (2009). Page 36.
[16] Amy Concannon, '"Brothers in Art: Drawings by Watts and Leighton' 17 November 2015—19 February 2016 Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey,” The British Art Journal 17, Spring (2016): 149.
[17] Sally Woodcock, 'Leighton and Roberson: An Artist and His Colourman,' The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1121 (August 1996): 526–28. Page 527.
[18] Newall, Leighton the Academic. (1996). Pages 55-68. Page 64.
[19] Ciarán Rua O’Neill, 'Column Bodies: The Caryatid and Frederic Leighton’s Royal Academy Sketchbooks,' Sculpture Journal 25, no. 3 (2016): 421–32. Page 431, 423.
[20] Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn, email correspondence on having seen a digital copy of the work, Friday 8th November 2024. Professor Prettejohn further identified a similar piece with which to compare it, A sheet of studies for 'Captive Andromache', 10½ x 13¾ in. Christie’s, ‘Victorian and British Impressionist Art’, 15th June 2011, Lot 8.
Figures
Fig. 1. Captive Andromache, Frederic, Lord Leighton, c. 1888, oil on canvas, 77.1/2 × 160.1/4 in. Manchester Art Gallery.
Fig. 2. Detail of Captive Andromache.
Fig. 3. Detail of Captive Andromache.
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