Flaming June

Flaming June  Frederick Leighton  1895

Museo de Arte de Ponco, Puerta Rica

This is the famous painting by Frederick, Lord Leighton, probably of his favourite model, the actress Dorothy Dene, who also sat for George Frederic Watts and John Everett Millais.  These were among the rich and socially ambitious painters who built houses for themselves in Kensington, close to the homes of their wealthy patrons like the Ionides family, the Prinseps or Lady Holland.

Leighton's house on Holland Park Road was designed as a Palace of Art, with six eye-catching public rooms, including his large studio/gallery, the scene of soiree's and concerts as well as actual painting.  His single bedroom is small and almost spartan in contrast.

He came to fame early, when Queen Victoria purchased his painting Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna in Procession in Florence when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1855;  his work follows this classicizing Renaissance revival style.

Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna by Frederick Leighton 1855

On loan to the National Gallery London, from the Royal Collection

 Many of his paintings are widely dispersed in public and private collections (there are several large murals by him at the V&A Museum), but the Leighton House collection now includes many important paintings, drawings and sculpture by Leighton and his circle of artist friends.

Leighton House  © Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

The star of Leighton House itself is the Arab Hall, based on a twelfth century palace in Palermo, with its gentle fountain and pool.   It was created to display his glowing collection of early Syrian and Isnik  tiles and ceramics,  acquired on his travels, and on a visit to Damascus in 1873, with marble,  mosaics and carving. Here he was helped by the Consul,  explorer Sir Richard Burton:

 "My wife and I will keep a sharp look-out for you, and buy up as many [old tiles] as we can find which seem to answer your description.  If native inscriptions -- white or blue, for instance -- are to be had, I shall secure them, but not if imperfect.  Some clearing away of rubbish is expected at Damascus; the Englishman who superintends is a friend of mine, and I shall not neglect to get from him as much as possible (1871)."  Other friends added to his collection and  fellow artists Walter Crane, William de Morgan, Edgar Boehm and Randolph Caldecott collaborated on the finished design,
"quite the 8th wonder of the world, including a Moorish cupola palace, with a fountain, all lined with precious Persian tiles and mosaics by Walter Crane, as good almost as a Ravenna church;" ( Mrs Vernon Lee 1883).

I am sure my small daughter cannot be the only past visitor gazing up at the amazing golden frieze who has found themselves ankle deep in the pool.     Today Leighton House is one of London's less familiar public treasures, a quiet oasis just off Kensington High Street,  where you can soak up the atmosphere of artistic life in the late nineteenth century,  preferably keeping dry feet.

Quotations from Caroline Dakers' The Holland Park Circle.

Kangxi Porcelain, painters and collectors

James Whistler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti  led the craze for collecting blue and white china in the 1860s and some of their pieces survive, like this Chinese "ginger" jar.    Whistler must have appreciated the porcelain painter's skill in achieving the wide range of tones in its cobalt blue underglaze decoration.

Kangxi lidded jar, c.1662-1722  
© Victoria & Albert Museum

Blue and white ceramics frequently appear in the background of his paintings, although Whistler's best known relationship with Chinese porcelain may be the famous Peacock Room which he painted for the display of  Frederick Leyland's collection of Kangxi china, along with his "Princesse du pays de la Porcelaine".

La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine  James Whistler 1863-5
© Freer Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Asked to repaint the flowers on the room's leather wall panels from pink to yellow - better to offset the 'valuable blue china',  Whistler entirely repainted the panels with his wonderful scheme of golden peacocks, Harmony in Blue and Gold, completely eclipsing the the collection itself.

Harmony in Blue and Gold: the Peacock Room   James Whistler 1877 © Freer Art Gallery, Washington D.C. 

According to artist Thomas Armstrong, "The cobalt blue of the pots suffered terribly from juxtaposition with Whistler's paint, made of Prussian or Antwerp blue. …the colour did not serve as a happy background for people or furniture, and it was fatal to the blue china."

Section  of the Peacock Room   James Whistler 1877  

© Freer Art Gallery Washington D.C 

Murray Marks, the dealer who supplied these wealthy patrons with their Oriental porcelains, wrote that "No-one can say a word against the almost miraculous beauty of the decorations which …was quite wonderful and entrancing, but it was complete of itself, not a background for porcelain or for anything else."*

Some twenty years later, Whistler's friend Louise Jopling painted a china collection in a quieter domestic setting, sometimes called "Washing the China" and now appropriately at the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

Blue and white: washing the china   Louise Jopling 1896
© National Museums  of Liverpool

* see "The Holland Park Circle"  Caroline Dakers

Other artists also collected Persian wares, like these,  of which more in my next blog.