CHAPTER IX
Lord Leighton's Home
If we seek for practical expression of Leighton's sympathy for decorative art, we may find it most satisfactorily in his own home as it appeared during his life. Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., designed the whole house;—even the Arab Hall being largely built from drawings made specially by him in Moorish Spain. Although the exterior of No. 2, Holland Park Road has individuality, rather than distinction, it was within that its special charms were found. One of the first things seen on entering was a striking bronze statue, "Icarus," by Mr. Alfred Gilbert; a typical instance of Leighton's generous recognition of artistic contemporaries.
In earlier pages we spoke of the Arab Hall and its Oriental enchantment. No attempt to paint the effects of such an interior in words can call it up half as clearly as the slightest actual drawing. There is a dim dome above, and a fountain falling into a great black marble basin below; there are eight little arched windows of stained glass in the dome; and there are white marble columns, whose bases are green, whose capitals are carved with rare and curious birds, supporting the arches of the alcoves. The Cairo lattice-work in the lower arched recesses lets in only so much of the hot light of midsummer (for it is in summer that one should see it to appreciate its last charm), as consists with the coolness, and the quiet, and the perfect Oriental repose, which give the chamber its spell.
THE HOUSE: THE INNER HALL
More in what we may call the highway of the house, from entrance hall to studios, is the large hall, out of which the Arab Hall leads, and from which the dark oak staircase ascends with walls tiled in blue and white. Here, on every side, one saw all manner of lovely paintings and exquisite bric-à-brac: a drawing of The Fontana della Tartarughe in Rome by Leighton's old mentor, Steinle; other bronzes and paintings, and in full view a huge stuffed peacock, which seemed to have shed some of its brilliant hues upon its surroundings.
In the drawing-room hung many Corots and Constables, with a superb Daubigny, and a most tempting example of George Mason,—a picture of a girl driving calves on a windy hill, amid a perfect embarrassment of such artistic riches. The famous Corots, a sequence of panels, representing Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night, which cost Lord Leighton less than 1,000 francs each, were sold for 6,000 guineas for the four, at Christie's, in July, 1896. Still another small Corot, a picture of a boat afloat on a still lake, was also in this room. One of the Constables that hung there is literally historic—for it is the sketch for that famous Hay Wain which, exhibited in Paris, at once upset the classical tradition, and gave impetus to the whole modern school of French landscape. Near it was one of Constable's many pictures of Hampstead Heath,—simply a bit of dark heath against a sympathetic sky; but so painted as to be a masterpiece of its kind. These pictures were but a few of the many artfully disposed things of beauty, born in older Italy, or newer France, or in our new-old London.