“Recollections of the Royal Academy. No. III” from the 1876 “Fun”

Recollections of the Royal Academy. No. III

Engraving

Fun (21 June 1876): 264

This cartoon mocks paintings by Sir Francis Grant, Frank Holl, and others, but its main focus is on Sir Frederick Leighton’s Daphnephoria, which is now in the Lady Lever Collection, Port Sunlight. [continued below]

Courtesy of the Suzy Covey Comic Book Collection in the George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida.

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Recollections No. I

Recollections No. III

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the University of Florida library and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. — George P. Landow]

Christopher Wood on the painting

The high point of Leighton’s middle period is the enormous Daphnephoria, a vast picture 17 feet long, which took him two years to finish, from 1874 to 1876. It was commission ed by Stewart Hodgson, a wealthy stockbroker and one of Leighton’s leading patrons, for his house, Lythe Hill in Surrey. The subject of the picture is the triumphal procession held every ninth year in Themes in honour of Apollo, and also to celebrate the Theban victory over the Aeollians at Arne. . . .Leighton’s procession is headed by a young priest acting the part of Apollo, which was called the Daphnephoros, or laurel bearer. In front of him is a youth carrying symbols of the sun, and behind him three boys with military trophies. Behind them is a priest (Choragos) with a lyre, who conducts the chorus of singing maidens. . . . In spite of this archeological detail, the picture was not really intended to be archeologically or historically accurate. It is a hymn to beauty, to Greek ideals of harmony, wholeness and balance. This is Leighton’s vision of the ancient world — a world of beauty, order, and human perfection. The mood of the picture is one of intense nostalgia, and it must be counted among his finest works. Holman Hunt called it “the very noblest picture that has been produced in modern times. [57]

Bibliography

Wood, Christopher. Olympian Dreamers: Victorian Classical Painters, 1860-1914. London: Constable, 1983.

Last modified 2 March 2016