Q&A: The Arab Hall at Leighton House

The Arab Hall at Leighton House is for many the centre piece of this unique artist home. Started in 1877 it was not fully completed until 1881. An extension of the original building, it reflects Leighton’s personal fascination with the Middle East which he often visited on his travels.

Widely admired by Leighton’s contemporaries, the Arab Hall’s fame and reputation continue to the present day, as a favourite spot for visitors and much sought-after location for photoshoots, films and music videos.

Find out more about this iconic space and read our Q&A with Islamic Art expert, Melanie Gibson.

The inspiration and design

What was Leighton’s inspiration to build the Arab Hall?

Leighton worked closely with his architect George Aitchison. They were inspired by different buildings that they admired on their travels to Palermo, Granada, Istanbul, Cairo and Damascus.

How many initial plans were there before the final design was realised?

There are several coloured drawings made by George Aitchison of how he planned the tile panels, but none match the final design.

How much did the Arab Hall cost to build?

It is possible to piece this together from Leighton’s bank account at Coutts and includes Aitchison’s fee as an architect, it came to more than £7,000. The original house had cost just £4,500 to build, which demonstrates what an expensive undertaking it was.

Does it require specific conservation treatments?

The Arab Hall requires plenty of conservation cleaning – in particular the wooden screens (known in Arabic as mashrabiyya) get very dusty. There are sensors in the room that keep tabs on the temperature and humidity as well.

What is that small shape at the very top of the exterior of the dome?

The exterior of the dome has a metal spire topped by a crescent which is typically found on the domes of mosques and shrines in Egypt, Syria and Turkey.

Did Leighton use the Arab Hall as a setting for any of his paintings?

Leighton only used the Arab Hall as a setting for one painting called 'Sun Gleam' which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884. Two paintings dated 1877, the same year the construction of the Arab Hall began, ‘At a Reading Desk’ and ‘The Music Lesson’, feature furniture, textiles and carpets that he bought on his travels in the Middle East.

Does the Arab Hall reflect Leighton’s persona or his arts?

Some 19th century visitors described the Arab Hall as an exotic space from The Arabian Nights but Frederic Leighton once referred to it as ‘a little addition for the sake of something beautiful to look at once in a while’, a light-hearted comment that emphasises that he considered the beauty and harmony of his Arab Hall to be its essential qualities.

Middle Eastern tiles

Did Leighton design and have the tiles produced specially or did he have them brought from the Middle East?

Leighton collected and purchased many of the tiles himself on his trips to Turkey, Egypt and Syria, as well as asking friends and colleagues to acquire further tiles for him. Caspar Purdon Clarke, who went on to became director of the V&A museum in London, purchased the two matching panels featuring grape motifs on the West wall, in Damascus in 1877.

How were the tiles transported from Syria to London?

Leighton travelled to Damascus in 1873 by ship to Beirut, followed by a diligence (stagecoach) which took 13 hours. His purchases of tiles and ceramics would have been taken to Beirut and shipped back to London via the French merchant shipping company ‘Messageries Nationales’. A number of cheques paid out  by Leighton between 28 October and 19 December 1873 were to a Mr Savech, the manager of the port service in Beirut.

How long did it take Leighton to source the tiles?

We don’t know exactly when Leighton started buying tiles, but it may have been on his 1867 trip to Turkey and Greece. He bought a number of Iznik ceramic plates in Lindos in Rhodes on this trip – and these were subsequently hung on the walls of his dining room and drawing room. He bought  a large number of  tiles in Cairo in 1868 and many of these were arranged a year or two later at the bottom of the staircase.  It may have been this installation that inspired the building of the Arab Hall and when he visited  Damascus in 1873, he was intent on buying tiles. He wrote to his friend the artist Val Prinsep from the city, telling him that he was spending  'a vast deal of time in hunting tiles'. The building of the Arab Hall was mostly finished in 1880 by which time all the tiles were probably in place.

Was William De Morgan involved in the design of the tile panels?

Assembling and arranging the different tiles to create a coherent and harmonious whole was a feat requiring considerable skill and Frederic Leighton and George Aitchison commissioned William De Morgan, an experienced ceramicist who had opened his own studio at 36 Cheyne Row in 1872, to make repairs to the damaged tiles and replacements for the missing ones. De Morgan also created the beautiful deep turquoise tiles which line the walls of the Narcissus Hall and staircase.

Revival mosaics

Who designed the mosaic floors?

The mosaic floors are in the three connecting halls on the ground floor. The black-and-white classical patterns, each one different, were designed by George Aitchison, probably inspired in part by floors he had seen in Italy. In the Arab Hall, the interlinked flower motif border echoes some of the tile designs.

What inspired the gold mosaic frieze?

Leighton would have seen gold mosaics decorating the interiors of buildings on his trip to Damascus in 1873 and to Palermo in 1875. He made an oil sketch of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, built by the Norman ruler Roger II in the 12th century, which was entirely lined with gold mosaics. The artist Walter Crane, whom Leighton commissioned to design a mosaic frieze for the Arab Hall, mentions being sent a photograph of La Zisa, a hunting palace from the same period, with a design of mosaic medallions for him to copy. The glass mosaic pieces were made in Venice by a firm called Salviati & Co.

A calming fountain

Were the fountain and chandelier also brought back from Syria? And how were they installed?

The fountain and the chandelier were both made in London. The fountain, its shape and design based on a type that Aitchison and Leighton had seen in Cairo houses, had a central jet that splashed into the basin. It was originally made of pieces of white marble but after this leaked was replaced with black marble and had goldfish swimming in it. The chandelier was partly inspired by the light fixtures that Leighton had seen hanging in various mosques; made by the London firm Forrest and Son, it originally used gas and was converted to electricity in the 1890s.

Does the fountain still work?

The fountain was originally fed from a water tank on the flat roof above the Silk Room, working by pressure. It was modified twice and eventually the fountain was sealed and converted to an electrical pump because the water appeared to be draining into the foundations of the Arab Hall.

Have many people fallen in the fountain?

There is an account written by one of Leighton's friends, that after a dinner party one evening, while they were drinking coffee and smoking in the Arab Hall, one of them stepped right into the fountain, disturbing two of the goldfish! This even happens today from time to time as visitors look upwards as they walk into this stunning space.

Dr. Melanie Gibson, BA (Oxon) MA, PhD (SOAS, London University) is a well-known authority on Middle Eastern ceramics, writing and lecturing on them worldwide. A Council Member of the Oriental Ceramic Society, she is also an Executive Trustee of Gingko and Editor of the Gingko Art Series, and a Trustee of the Friends of Leighton House, where she first became fascinated by the history behind the creation of The Arab Hall, the subject of her recent book: The Arab Hall. Frederic Leighton, Traveller And Collector, Gingko, 2026