The life, letters and work of Frederic Leighton. Volume II

by Mrs. Russell Barrington

LORD LEIGHTON'S HOUSE[ToC]

AND WHAT IT CONTAINS[89]

Preface To Catalogue

Two miles and a quarter from Hyde Park Corner, removed but a few steps from the main thoroughfare between London and Hammersmith, and running parallel to it, is Holland Park Road, facing which stands Lord Leighton's House. "I live in a mews," he used to say. This meant more than a figure of speech merely, though the "mews" in question is very different from a London street mews. Low, odd-shaped, irregular buildings, formerly stables (a few are still used as such), were in Lord Leighton's life converted into studios by artists who wished to cluster around the President of the Royal Academy. These stand in old gardens and are studded at intervals along the road, bordered by trees branching across it, and taking away all idea of its being a London street. Screened by a hedge of closely-cut lime-trees, the Leighton House stands back but a few yards from the pavement. Through a porch and a small outer hall the House is entered. Monsieur Choisy, the distinguished French architect, in his letter to the Times of April the 27th, 1896, written with the view of trying to induce the English nation to rise to the value of preserving this House as a national treasure, writes as follows:—

"Allow me also to point out the original beauty of the house where so many masterpieces are grouped. The French public have been enabled to admire this house through the excellent article of my friend and fellow-member of the R.I.B.A., Mr. Charles Lucas.

"Nowhere have I found in an architectural monument a happier gradation of effects nor a more complete knowledge of the play of light.

"The entrance to the house is by a plain hall that leads to a 'patio,' lit from the sky, where enamels shine brilliantly in the full light; from this 'patio' one passes into a twilight corridor, where enamel and gold detach themselves from an architectural ground of a richness somewhat severe; it is a transition which prepares the eye for a jewel of Oriental art, where the most brilliant productions of the Persian potter are set in an architectural frame inspired by Arab art, but treated freely; the harmony is so perfect that one asks oneself if the architecture has been conceived for the enamels or the enamels for the hall. This gradation, perhaps unique in contemporary architecture, was Leighton's idea; and the illustrious painter found in his old friend Mr. G. Aitchison, who built his house, a worthy interpreter of his fine conception. This hall where colour is triumphant, was dear to Leighton, and even forms the background to some of his pictures. Towards the end of his life he still meant to embellish it by substituting marble for that small part that was only painted. The generous employment of his fortune alone prevented him from realising his intention.

"England has at all times given the example of honouring great men; she will, I am sure, find the means of preserving for art a monument of which she had such reason to be proud."

As is now well known, Lord Leighton's executrixes, his two sisters, have assigned the lease of the property, which has sixty-six years yet to run, to three gentlemen who are members of the committee formed to preserve it for the use and education of the public, in memory of Lord Leighton, and the committee are now tenants at will of the proprietors. Works by Lord Leighton have been collected and placed in the studios and other rooms of the House. A large collection of his drawings and sketches and a few finished paintings have been secured through the generosity of his sisters, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Mrs. Matthews, and his personal friends, the list of these being headed by the Prince of Wales. This collection of original works numbers 1114, 594 being now framed and hung on the walls. The collection also contains 28 proof engravings from Lord Leighton's principal pictures, presented by those who own the copyrights, i.e. Mrs. James Watney (who has also given an original drawing), the Fine Arts Society, the Berlin Photographic Company, Messrs. Agnew, Graves, Colnaghi, and Tooth. There are also 112 photographic reproductions by Mr. F. Hollyer and Messrs. Dixon, these, with a few exceptions, having been taken for Lord Leighton in his studio. The greater number of these photographs were given to the House by Mr. Wilfred Meynell, Mr. F. Hollyer, and Messrs. Dixon; the remainder by Lord Davey, Sir Henry Acland, Mr. A. Henderson, Mr. Philipson, Mr. A.G. Temple, and Mr. George Smith. The reproductions of completed pictures have been hung on the walls together with the sketches executed for them, in order that the student may realise how Leighton developed the designs he made into finished pictures. When funds permit, the 520 remaining drawings and sketches will be framed, and it is the desire of the committee that, though the Leighton House should always remain the chief centre of the collections, groups of sketches should be lent to exhibitors in the provinces and in the poorer parts of London. In the middle of the centre hall is now placed a reproduction presented by Mr. Brock, R.A., of the bust of Lord Leighton, executed by his sculptor friend—that perfect likeness in bronze of the President placed among the Diploma works in Burlington House. Surrounding this reproduction and lining the walls and staircase are plaques of Oriental designs, pictures in enamel, framed in by a background of Mr. William De Morgan's beautiful blue tiles.[90] The same treatment is continued through the "twilight corridor" leading to the great casket of treasures known as the Arab Hall. In the summer of 1899 the Society of the Library Association was received at the Leighton House, and at the meeting which preceded the conversazione, Lord Crawford, President of the Association, ended the speech he made on the merits and rare gifts of his friend, Lord Leighton, by a reference to the unique value of this casket of treasures. "We often," he said, "see Persian tiles in England. They are chiefly made in England, but they are bought in Persia! A genuine Persian tile is a very rare thing. When you meet it, cherish it!" In this Arab Hall hundreds of these "rare" things are collected, each individually of a quality of uncommon beauty and almost priceless, owing to the fact that large spaces on the walls are filled with these gorgeous tiles, fitted together as originally designed and intended by the Persian artists who invented them. Travellers who went to the East when there was still a chance of buying genuine Persian tiles know how it came about that these could sometimes be procured. The owners of the houses on the walls of which they were placed would become impoverished and were easily induced to sell a single tile to a traveller as a specimen. When the money paid for it was spent and more was wanted, if a second traveller came by another single tile was sold. The first purchaser might have been an Englishman, the second a Frenchman, the third a German, and so on. In this way the several tiles making one design got hopelessly dispersed. Lord Leighton, aided by his friend, Sir C. Purdon Clarke, the Director of the Art Museum, South Kensington, was extraordinarily lucky in obtaining large plaques of tiles intact. "During his visits to Rhodes, to Cairo, and to Damascus," writes Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., "he made a lovely collection of Saracenic tiles, and had, besides, bought two inscriptions, one of the most delicate colour and beautiful design, and the other about sixteen feet long and strikingly magnificent; besides getting some panels, stained glass, and lattice-work from Damascus afterwards; these were fitted into an Arab Hall in 1877." The enamelled tiles made the keynote of this beautiful creation, the Arab Hall, which, to repeat Mr. Choisy's words, forms a harmony "so perfect that one asks oneself if the architecture has been conceived for the enamels or the enamels for the Hall." Round three sides (the fourth being filled by the large inscription) runs a frieze in mosaics, the designs of which are among the most beautiful of those invented by our great English decorator, Walter Crane. Sir C. Purdon Clarke has designated this creation of Lord Leighton's, in which he was so ably assisted by his friend, Mr. George Aitchison, R.A., President of the Royal Society of British Architects, and in which is to be traced that generous delight which Leighton took in all that was good in the art of his contemporaries, as "the most beautiful structure which has been raised since the sixteenth century." It would, alone, make the preservation of the House as an effective medium for education in the beautiful a necessity to any truly art-loving people.