FREDERIC LORD LEIGHTON PRA RWS HRCA HRSW (1830-1896) Biography

Provenance

Christie's, 1868 (according to Redford)
James Leathart, hi sale, Christie's, 19 June 1897 (lot 39, bought by Corns).

Literature

'The Times', 29 April 1865, p.12:
'Mr. Leighton's David(5) is the first picture to give us pause. This is one of our few painters who aim at style and the expression of a dominant idea. Here the aim seems to be at an embodiment of the weariness of life and labour in a great and good king. The crown lies at his feet unheeded, while the Jewish bard and monarch, with a worn and wistful face, gazes longingly after the doves that wing their way through a sky of rolling storm-clouds to a clear, sun-lit space of heaven far beyond. This is the painter's highest achievement of the year, and in power of pathetic expression, we conceive, the noblest he has yet produced. The painter's versatility and learning are shown in the great variety of intention expressed in five pictures'.
'The Athenaeum', 29 April 1865, p.592: 'Mr Leighton makes his début as an Associate of the Royal Academy with spirit and success ... Another painting by Mr F. Leighton may be taken, so far as technical quality is concerned as a symphony in blue minor, and a very impressive one it is. This is named David, O that I had wings like a dove!(5), and represents, objectively, David seated on the house-top and gazing after the flight of doves towards the golden hollow of the purple clouds whose dark sides face him, and whose brilliant lining lights, by refection, even the shaded valleys of the happy mountain-land which on the horizon, although far off'.
'The Art Journal', 1865, p.163:
'Hanging at no considerable distance from the impersonation of Esau [by G.F. Watts], is the figure of David(5), as conceived by F. LEIGHTON, a work that on several accounts, cannot be passed in silence. In the first place the figure is conspicuous for a breadth and power not always found in the artist's doubly-distilled ideas. Then, again, in the colours, especially of the background, where solemn purple hills preside over the plain, the spectator cannot but admire the poetry and grandeur of the conception'.
'The Saturday Review', 1865;
Rhys, Ernest, with prefatory essay by Stephens, F.G., Sir Frederic Leighton, Bart., P.R.A.
An Illustrated Chronicle, 1865, p.XXII; Rhys, Ernest, Frederic Lord Leighton, 1898, p.18: 'In his tenderly conceived David, the Psalmist is seen gazing at two doves in the sky above; he, sunk in a profound reverie, is seated upon a house-top overlooking some neighbouring hills. The whole is large in its handling and treatment, and in the simplicity of its drapery recalls several of the famous illustrations the artist contributed to Dalziel's Bible Gallery. It was exhibited with the quotation: 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove. For then I would fly away and be at rest.''
Corkran A., Frederic Leighton, 1904, pp 57, 102: '...The large handling of the drapery, the simplicity of the composition, are in accord with Leighton's ideal of biblical grandeur. The picture provoked some hostile criticism; but it is a memorable work nevertheless'.
Barrington, Mrs Russell, The Life, Letters and Works of Frederic Leighton, 1906, vol. II, pp.123, 384;
Ormond, Leonee and Richard, Lord Leighton, 1975, p.156, catalogue of works no.116 (as untraced).

Exhibition History

The Royal Academy, 1865, no.5;
The Royal Academy, Winter Exhibition, 1897, no. 18, (lent by Mrs. Leathart - label attached)

Description / Expertise

In the 1860s Leighton was particularly intrigued and attracted by the Old Testament and Jewish History. David, who was the first king of the Judean dynasty, and as such was the ancestor and prototype of Christ, appealed to Leighton as a romantic hero. Other subjects of Leighton’s which demonstrate his fascination with the Old Testament in the 1860s are Jezebel and Ahab and Jonathan’s Token to David, done in c. 1863 and c. 1868 respectively. This interest may to some extent have been fostered by his having worked on a series of woodcut illustrations for Dalziel’s Bible Gallery in 1863-4. Swarthy and dark-haired facial types appealed to Leighton; there exist many drawn studies of models of semitic type.
David is important as the development of Leighton’s art as a relatively early example of a type of painting where the subject is isolated; in this case the figure of David dominates the picture space by being shown in stark silhouette against a plain wall and distant horizon, and by its scale in relation to the overall size. The compositional lines of the painting converge forcefully in the head of David; his eyes reflect the vision of the kingdom of Heaven that he has received. To some extent as a result of his work on the illustrations for Dalziel’s Bible Gallery Leighton had learnt the value of simple, easily read figure compositions in which the emotional content may be most powerful and direct.
David has not been exhibited since 1897 nor described since 1904.