Head of an Arab, 1865 (Oil on canvas)

Painted by Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896)

Why Is It Important?

In common with many artists of the period, Leighton travelled to the Middle-East on a number of occasions. Throughout North Africa, Turkey and Damascus (now part of modern Syria) he made numerous pencil sketches and other studies in oil. He was particularly affected by the quality of light he encountered together with what might now be considered a somewhat sentimental attachment to local colour. Many of the sketches were used in a more developed form as background incident in his finished works.

Cultural Links

Leighton was attracted to a sense of nobility he detected in Arabic people. On a visit to Tangier he wrote,

"This is a prodigiously picturesque place and I enjoy more than I can say watching the Arabs swarming up the streets and markets, stately and grand in their picturesqueness beyond any population that I know and particularly instructive and valuable to an artist from sculpturesque definiteness of their forms"

Next : Studies of Arab men and women, 1857 (pencil on white paper).

Previous : A short necked bottle-shaped vase, circa 1880.

End Arab Hall Tour.