River Landscape, probably in Italy
Sir Frederic Leighton, Lord Leighton PRA (Scarborough 1830 – Kensington 1896)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1859
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
229 x 423 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515559
Caption
Lord Leighton’s landscape views and architectural studies, which he made when travelling, were areas of his oeuvre unknown to the Victorian public. In his role as President of the Royal Academy, he promoted the painting of highly finished classical nudes. Through his friendship with the Italian landscape painter Costa, and later from studying Corot’s ‘plein air’ (open air) landscape style, Leighton managed to convey natural form and the effects of light in an impressionistic manner. These sketches were not seen by Leighton as finished pieces, but served to record his impression of his surroundings, and were a means of working out problems of pictorial representation.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, River Landscape, probably in Italy, by Sir Frederic Leighton, Lord Leighton PRA (Scarborough 1830 – Kensington 1896). A view of a bend in the river, possibly in Italy, perhaps the Tiber of Aniene, north-east of Rome, winding through a wide plain to distant hills. A building is shown in the right-hand distance, perched on a small hill, while dotted across the countryside are dark conical shapes, perhaps haystacks.
Provenance
Visible in a photogrph of the artist's studio taken in 1880; Christie's, Lodon, 9 November 1945, lot 120, bought Spink & Son; acquired by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven, (1896-1966) in 1946; by whom bequeathed to the National Trust with the house and the rest of the contents.
Makers and roles
Sir Frederic Leighton, Lord Leighton PRA (Scarborough 1830 – Kensington 1896), artist
References
Ornond 1975 Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, London 1975, no. 532