PLATE IV.—CLYTEMNESTRA
This picture was painted in Paris, whither he had gone in the autumn of 1855. He made that city his headquarters for some two years during which he worked assiduously, and found many friends among the leaders of French art. In 1858 he stayed for a time in London, and by coming in contact with some of the younger painters, who were then contributing an important chapter to our art history—with men like Millais, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt—he obtained a closer insight into certain artistic movements of which, while abroad, he had probably heard but the faintest echoes. By this time the Pre-Raphaelite rebellion had produced its effect and was not in need of his support, but it may fairly be assumed that, if the need had arisen, he would have been on the side of those who were fighting for the emancipation of British art.
In the following year he was again in Italy, and during the spring he worked in Capri; it was there that he executed that marvellous drawing of the "Lemon Tree," which has always, and with justice, been counted among his masterpieces; but in 1860 he decided to settle in London, and established himself in Orme Square, Bayswater. Life in London did not, however, mean that his excursions to other countries were to be abandoned, he continued regularly to spend some months in each year in travel abroad, and he visited in succession Spain, Damascus, Egypt, and other parts of the East, besides renewing his acquaintance with many places which he had seen before. These wanderings were always productive; they added much to his stock of material, and the results of them are embodied in a number of his pictures, as well as in that long series of open air sketches which show how sensitive he was to the beauty of nature, and how delicately he could interpret her moods.
PLATE V.—THE BATH OF PSYCHE
(At the Tate Gallery, London)
One of the most fascinating of Leighton's classic compositions. It was painted six years before his death, and represents perfectly the art of his later period, when his powers had fully matured and he had acquired complete control over refinements of practice. Exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1890. Purchased by the Chantrey Trustees in 1890.
