Study for 'The Syracusan Bride': Female Figures

Drawing details

Title: Study for 'The Syracusan Bride': Female Figures
Date: c.1865
Media: Pencil on tracing paper
Dimensions: 15.7 x 14.9 cm
Location: Royal Academy of Arts, London
Picture credit: Royal Academy of Arts, London
Reference number: 04/1161
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower centre "Andromache / No 113 / 1888" in pencil.

Interpretation

This drawing has been wrongly inscribed 'Captive Andromache', possibly by the Fine Art Society in 1896.

Description

A faint outline tracing of a group of draped female figures. The figure group relates to the group of women by a statue on the left hand side of the painting 'The Syracusan Bride Leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Temple of Diana' (1865-66, private collection). The group of standing women, though faint and in outline, is compositionally very close to the finished painting. However, the male figures below them differ slightly from the arrangement of the final composition. Leighton altered this group by placing the two men, seen here on the right, on the far left of the canvas looking up at the group of women in procession. He also turned the old man with a walking stick around and placed him nearer the centre of the picture looking up at the procession. 

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist to his sisters, Mrs. Augusta Matthews (nTe Augusta Neunburg Leighton, 1835-1919) and Mrs. Alexandra Orr (nTe Alexandra Leighton, 1828-1903); presented to the Royal Academy of Arts, London by Matthews and Orr in 1896