GEORGE FREDERIC WATTS OM RA HRCA (1817-1904) Biography

Description / Expertise

This etching is based on the second of Watt's three portraits of Frederic Leighton. The first (exhibited Royal Academy 1871, Sir Michael Leighton, Bart) shows the artist full face. The second, painted two years after Frederic Leighton's election as President of the Royal Academy, was part of the series of portraits of great Victorians Watts painted for presentation to the nation, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery. The third, also representing a seated pose, was painted for the Royal Academy's own collection in 1890 and was first exhibited at the New Gallery in 1896 as a memorial to Leighton.
Watts and Leighton had been friends since the late 1850's, but were brought in to closer friendship after Leighton's move to Kensington in the mid-1860's. Watts's three portraits document their friendship and also the esteem in which he held the younger man.