Recent acquisitions
Leighton House has recently acquired Nymphs in a
Landscape, c. 1540 Oil on panel

The Artist:
Andrea Meldolla (Il Schiavone) Born c. 1510 in Zara, Dalmatia
(now Zadar, Croatia) Died 1563, in Venice, Italy Andrea Meldolla
was a painter, draughtsman and etcher. Born on the Dalmatian coast,
then under Venetian jurisdiction, he was probably in Venice by the
late 1530s where he was nicknamed ‘Schiavone’ or ‘the Slav’.
Vigorous, experimental and versatile as an artist, he was a major
figure in the evolution of Venetian painting in the sixteenth
century. For Leighton House Museum, the present work has particular
significance as it formed part of Leighton's original collections
contained within his studio-house in Holland Park Road.
Born into a prominent family, little is known of Schiavone’s
early training and it seems likely that he was largely self-taught.
He nevertheless derived particular inspiration from the work of the
Mannerist painter Parmigianino (1503-40) whose prints he copied
extensively. Once in Venice, Schiavone played a significant part in
translating central Italian Mannerist modes and motifs into
Venetian circles, evolving his own style by around 1540. His large
and ambitious canvases and frescoes were unprecedented in their
bold, impressionistic use of paint, forcing Venetians to re-examine
the acceptable range of painting. Schiavone’s broad, fluid
brushwork and vibrant textures overrode a concern for defined
contours and narrative clarity. Contemporaries complained about his
lack of finish. Vasari in his Lives of the Artists took credit for
commissioning a large battle scene from Schiavone in 1540
describing it as ‘one of the best that Andrea Schiavone ever did’
but was critical of other work which he described as ‘dashed off,
or rather, sketched, without being in any respect finished’. A
second contemporary, the painter and writer Paolo Pino (1534-65)
called Schiavone’s use of impasto ‘worthy of infamy’. But these
same innovations provided important models for younger Venetian
artists particularly Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-94) and Jacopo Bassano
(c. 1510-92) whose debt to Schiavone is evident in the 1540s and
early 1550s (in 2013, a work by Schiavone dating from c.1555 in the
collections of the V&A was reattributed to Tintoretto). Titian
(c.1490-1576) also expressed his admiration for Schiavone and his
ability to design with great freedom and immediacy.
After about 1550, Schiavone began to incorporate greater control
and naturalism in his painting. Though he retained his open
brushwork and rich textures, his colour harmonies grew darker and
more dense and the tone of his pictures more subdued. The inventive
paint handling in his later works influenced such painters as Palma
Il Giovane as did his innovative work as an etcher. Fresco
technique had been important in the formation of his methods but
although he is understood to have completed extensive frescoes
adorning Venetian building facades, these do not survive. In his
final years, Schiavone received substantial public and professional
recognition, but his work remained diverse and in both character
and intention. These included mythological scenes in a light and
decorative vein and religious painting that could be intensely
realised and of great power and imagination.
Few of Schiavone’s works are documented, perhaps confirming
Vasari’s contention that he worked largely for private clients.
Relatively few works are in public collections in the UK including
two small pictures in the National Gallery and individual works at
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Government Art
Collection. The two works at the National Gallery are believed to
be the ‘end panels’ from a cassone with the main front panel now in
Amiens, France. No corresponding ‘side panels for the present work
have been identified. A set of seven cassone paintings that
probably formed a decorative frieze by Schiavone are in the Royal
Collection.
The work:
Nymphs in a Landscape, c. 1540 Oil on panel
Until 1913, the fullest account of Schiavone’s life and career
was in Carlo Ridolfi’s La Maraviglie dell’ arte published in 1648.
According to Ridolfi, the artist was a frequent painter of beds,
chests and other furniture. The prominence of this activity within
his oeuvre was restated in the 1660s by the critic Marco Boschini
who explained that when the artist was short of work he painted
chests for a certain Rocco della Carita who had his workshop
beneath the Procuratie Vecchie on Piazza San Marco in Venice.
Rocco’s son recalled that his father had paid Schiavone 24 soldi
daily for painting up to two casse per day “with histories, fables,
foliage, arabesques, grotesques, and similar things.” He also noted
that “today these chests are sold for up to 100 ducats each, and
one does not find them on sale anymore; rather one sees them
decorating many galleries, as precious things, and of this there is
not doubt”.
The present picture conforms to this basic history, its
proportions suggesting that it was painted to decorate the front of
a chest (although an alternative furniture type cannot be entirely
ruled out) from which it was subsequently removed to hang on the
wall of a private home, gaining a value that transcended its
original purpose. However, while the current painting is certainly
a cassone and Schiavone produced other examples, more recent
research has suggested this was a relatively minor activity in
relation to the entirety of his oeuvre.
The present panel cannot be dated with certainty. Schiavone
painted in different veins at the same period and much of his work
seems to have been for private clients and is undocumented.
However, the consensus is that the present panel is of the 1540s
and can be related to other works of this period in several ways.
To begin with, although clearly a mythological scene, the subject
remains unidentified. A basic narrative can be determined as
follows. The scene is set against a rich green landscape. In the
distance on the slower slopes of a central mountain range nestles a
town. At the left of the panel a female figure enveloped in purple
and yellow draperies and carried on a grey cloud is seen
descending. At the centre of the composition she is shown standing
and being greeted by three other female figures. Her appearance
seems to both intrigue and to alarm them; the lower figure reaches
out towards her in a gesture that seems both hesitant but eager,
while the standing figure at the rear restrains the figure at the
right as she reaches forward. In the distance at the far right,
what appears to be the same group of three women with
correspondingly coloured draperies are seen dancing as they
approach a temple or shrine against which a sculpture can just be
distinguished. Whether this scene precedes the central meeting or
follows it is unclear and this relegation of clear narrative in
favour of painterly effect is a defining characteristic of
Schiavone’s painting of the 1540s which has been described as
'painterly to a degree that precludes narrative clarity'.
The Mannerist qualities that Schiavone brought to Venice are
evident here in the elongated, expressive and almost flimsy figures
with their extended hands and fingers and in the manipulations of
the limbs and torso of the figure as she descends on the left. The
primacy of painterliness over narrative is expressed here in the
rendering of form which owes little to delineation and outline and
chiefly in the remarkable treatment of the draperies. Painted with
extraordinary freedom and spontaneity, the application of thick
strands of paint; ‘ridges and blobs’ as they have been described,
express the folds and ripples of fabric as they expressively loops
around the figures. The breadth and energy of the colouring of
these draperies combining yellow, gold, green and purple suggests
the growing influence of Venetian painting within Schiavone’s work
as the 1540s progressed and gives a compelling liveliness and
vigour to the central grouping.
Significance of the work in relation to Leighton's own
painting:
Leighton’s neighbour and fellow artist, Valentine Prinsep,
described him as ‘the last of the British painters who sought after
the secrets of Titian’. He was fascinated by the processes,
materials and techniques of the Old Masters and how these could
inform his own working method. His collection included several oil
sketches and unfinished paintings (including works by his
contemporaries) where technique and process is laid bare. The
particular importance of the rich colouring and painterly effects
of Venetian art of the sixteenth century to Leighton is evident in
much of his own painting. As a collector, it is underlined by the
sixteen works in his collection from this date and source – the
largest single grouping. Of these, in addition to the present
painting, three works were attributed to Schiavone suggesting
Leighton’s significant interest in the artist whose reputation
remained relatively obscure at this period. Undoubtedly part of the
appeal of the Schiavone was therefore its very painterliness and,
the explicit sense of the hand of the artist that is communicated
through it.
A second prominent theme in Leighton’s own work was his
exploration of the expressive potential of draperies within a
composition. In works such as Greek Girls picking up Pebbles by the
Sea [1871, Private Collection] and Greek Girls playing at Ball
[1889, Dick Institute Kilmarnock], draperies are made to arch and
loop in a way that is almost independent of the figures which they
clothe, becoming an abstract element within the picture. In the
present work, drapery is used in as a sophisticated pictorial
device. The yellow drapery of the figure on the right of the
central group loops around behind her and then over her shoulder
where it is picked up in the line of her arm and then around into
the green drapery of the figure behind her, creating a figure of
eight which contains them both. At the same time her outstretched
hand carries this line across to the figure on the left, picking up
the purple drapery that snakes behind her and then over her hip.
While Leighton certainly drew heavily on Greek sculpture for his
treatment of draperies, it seems highly likely that he was
particularly engaged by the part that draperies play in animating
the central group of this work and enhancing the vivacity of the
composition.
Three new drawings
The museum has recently acquired three important works on paper
from the same private collection. One is by Leighton and two by his
friend George Howard, 9
th Earl of Carlisle.
The work by Leighton is a copy made in watercolour of Raphael’s
Disputa in the Stanza della Signatura (Room of the
Signature) in the Vatican Palace in Rome and dates from shortly
after his arrival in the city in 1852. This drawing is of
particular interest because Leighton’s copy of the other half of
the fresco was acquired by the museum from the Maas Gallery in 2000
and its acquisition therefore reunites the pair and completes the
image.

Copy of Raphael’s 'Disputa' by
Leighton. Purchased from David Alexander in 2012 by Leighton House
Museum.
Leighton was photographed on countless
occasions and was also the subject of numerous portraits, but
informal images of him are extremely rare as are those where he is
shown either painting or drawing. The addition of these two
drawings (recto and verso) of Leighton on a sketching expedition
are therefore of particular interest for the collection. Made
by George Howard, it has yet to be established if a date and
location can be attributed to these images. The two artists
undoubtedly sketched together on more than one occasion and
Leighton’s relaxed appearance and casual dress testifies to the
informality of the event. These drawings are also of interest
as the only known record of Leighton wearing the spectacles which
he apparently always wore when working.

Sketch of Frederic Leighton (recto and verso) by George
James Howard (1843-1911); 9th Earl of Carlisle
The Italian artist Giovanni Costa was a great
friend of both Leighton and George Howard. Leighton spent
time with Costa in Italy almost every year and did all he could to
further his career in London. Howard became Costa’s devoted
pupil and collected a great many works by the artist. This
drawing, a portrait study of Costa by Howard, therefore represents
the connection between this triumvirate of artists and complements
Leighton’s portrait of Costa of 1878, acquired by the museum in
2004.

Portrait of Giovanni Costa by George James Howard
(1843-1911); 9th Earl of Carlisle
Colour sketch for Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is Carried
in Procession through the Streets of Florence

Frederic Leighton, 1854, Oil on canvas
In November 1852 Frederic Leighton arrived in
Rome. He was just 21 years old and had only recently
completed his training in Frankfurt. Over the next two and a
half years he worked on the paintings with which he would launch
his career: The Reconciliation of the Monatgues and the
Capulets over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet and
Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through
the Streets of Florence.
Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna was
submitted to the Royal Academy in 1855. Despite its great
size (it was over five metres long) and Leighton’s youth and lack
of any reputation in this country, the work was selected
and displayed prominently. On the first day of the
exhibition, with the encouragement of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria
bought it, making this one of the most dramatic debuts in the
history of British art.
Leighton House Museum is delighted to have now
acquired the colour sketch for Cimabue’s Celebrated
Madonna at auction in New York. Leighton followed a
painstaking and rigorous process in making the picture,
establishing a method that he adhered to for the rest of his
career. He first produced drawn studies of individual heads,
draperies and other details. A number of these pencil
drawings are also held by the museum and include some of the most
beautiful studies of his career. He then produced a
highly-detailed pencil study for the whole composition and finally
a colour sketch. The purpose of this sketch in oils was to
establish the arrangement and balance of colours across the
composition. Once completed Leighton would then start
work on the canvas itself, hardly deviating from the studies
already produced.
The subject of the painting is taken from
Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors
and Architects published in Florence in 1550. Leighton drew on
a passage that described the triumphant procession of an altarpiece
through the streets of Florence following its completion by the
artist Giovanni Cimabue in about 1285. This he combined with
a second passage in which the visiting King of Anjou is taken to
view the finished work (the King can be seen on horseback at the
far right of the composition). The procession includes
many of the great artists of the time, including the young Giotto
who is shown at the centre, clasping the hand of Cimabue himself.
The poet Dante leans against the wall at the far right
watching the procession pass by. The painting is a
celebration of artists and artistic achievement – subjects that the
young Leighton was perhaps eager to promote as he considered his
future career.
There are two main differences between the
colour sketch and the finished work. The dog shown at bottom
right was eliminated in the final composition as was the figure
overlooking the procession from the top of the wall.
The finished painting remains in the Royal
Collection but can be seen in the National Gallery where it is
located above the main staircase into the building.
Leighton House Museum is grateful to the Art
Fund and the Friends of Leighton House Museum for making this
acquisition possible. For more information on the Friends of
Leighton House.
Inlaid cabinet on stand
Leighton's furniture, together with the
rest of the contents of the house, was sold at Christie's in
the summer of 1896 following his death. This cabinet sold for
£86 and then vanished, before re-appearing just over 100 years
later when it came up at auction in Melbourne, Australia in
1997.
The new owner found part of the original Leighton sale catalogue
inside one of the drawers. She wrote to the museum, enclosing
a photograph and it was immediately recognisable as the cabinet
that appears in the period photographs of the studio standing
between the two doors on the south side of the room.
The piece is made up of elements of a South German chest of the
late sixteenth century and possibly elements of an English chest of
drawers of a century later. These were combined and a stand
made for it around the middle of the nineteenth century. We
do not yet know when and where Leighton first acquired it,
but its highly decorative quality conforms to what we
know of much of Leighton's taste in furniture.
The cabinet was acquired for the museum in 2011 through the
generous support of Mr John Schaeffer.