'Greek Girls Playing at Ball'

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Painting details

Title: 'Greek Girls Playing at Ball'
Date: c.1889
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 119.4 x 198.1 cm
Location: The Dick Institute, Kilmarnock
Picture credit: Courtesy of Leighton House Museum, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (Rhys, Ernest, `Frederic Lord Leighton, Late President of the Royal Academy of Arts: An Illustrated Record of his Life and Work', George Bell and Sons, London, 1900, opposite

Interpretation

In an article of 1892 Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann (art editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, editor of the Magazine of Art, 1858-1948), in reference to this painting in particular, described the work that went into producing a Leighton painting: "Every fold, every line, every curve in each of his pictures has been the subject of studies drawn in black and white chalks on brown paper until, as in a complicated machine, every part fits into another, and the work is complete." He also gave us an interesting insight into how Leighton was able to draw the complex rippling draperies "Sir Frederic has adopted the device of arranging the material on the studio floor over cunningly-placed cotton-wool, whereby not only forms, but depths of folds, and the effects of light and shade may be obtained." [Speilmann, Marion Harry Alexander, 'Greek Girls Playing at Ball', 'The Graphic', 28 May 1892, p.637]

Provenance

Sold through Christie's, London 29 June 1895 (lot 112); purchased by J.M. Fraser; sold through Edmiston's, Glasgow 25 October 1934; presented by Sir Alexander Walker and George Dunlop to the Dick Institute, Kilmarnock in 1935.

Bibliography

• Jones, Stephen et al., 'Frederic Leighton', Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1996, catalogue number 96. Ormond, LeonTe and Richard, 'Lord Leighton', Yale University Press, London, 1975, p.169, catalogue number 343, plate 175

Exhibition history

• 1889, Royal Academy of Arts, London, catalogue number 300

Reproductions

Photogravure by the Berlin Photographic Co., 1881