Oil painting still-life study for Clytie by Frederic Leighton. Great Britain, 1895.

Oil painting still-life study depicting pomegranates and grapes on top of a stone frieze.

Bequeathed by Henry Louis Florence

Bequeathed by Henry L. Florence, 1916

Historical significance: Frederic Leighton was born in Scarborough in 1830, but his family travelled extensively in Europe during his childhood. After receiving an all round education, he studied art at Frankfurt under Steinle, and at Brussels, Paris and Rome. In 1852 he began to work independently and spent the next three years in Rome.

Leighton's painting Cimabue's Madonna carried through Florence (1853-55) was his first major work, and an immediate success. When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1855, it was bought by Queen Victoria.

Leighton settled in London in 1859, though he frequently travelled abroad. His cosmopolitan knowledge of languages, literature and music marked him out as an exceptional figure in Victorian London, and he rose rapidly through the art establishment. He was elected ARA in 1864 and RA in 1868, and attained the Presidency of the Royal Academy in 1878. He was the most influential of the Victorian Classical painters, and an important exponent of the 'subjectless' painting associated with the Aesthetic Movement, in which pictorial narrative is suppressed in favour of beauty and atmosphere. Leighton died on 25 January 1896 and is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Leighton painted this still-life study of fruit on a marble sarcophagus in the courtyard of the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome in the late summer of 1895, close to the end of his life. 'In the early part of 1895, when his health was beginning to deteriorate, he travelled to Algeria, to paint views of architecture and street scenes. In October he made his last visit to Italy, staying in Naples and Rome and travelling with [his friend Giovanni] Costa to Tuscany. In Costa's company, Leighton painted a still-life of grapes and pomegranates resting on the lid of a stone sarcophagus…' (Christopher Newall, 'Leighton and the art of Landscape', in Frederic Leighton 1830-1896, London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1996, p. 51). Leighton subsequently used the study as the basis for an arrangement of fruit and leaves which appears on the altar in his painting Clytie (ca.1895-6; Leighton House, London).

This painting was bequeathed to the V&A in 1916 by Henry L. Florence of Prince's Gate, South Kensington, London. The bequest also included paintings by Brangwyn, Clausen, Corot, Leighton and Fantin-Latour.

Frederic Leighton was one of the leading artists of the High Victorian period and the most influential of the nineteenth century Classical painters. Erudite and cosmopolitan, his knowledge of languages, literature and music marked him out as an exceptional figure in Victorian London. He rose rapidly through the art establishment and was elected as President of the Royal Academy in 1878. Leighton painted this still-life study of fruit on a marble sarcophagus in the courtyard of the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome in the late summer of 1895, close to the end of his life. He subsequently used the study as the basis for an arrangement of fruit and leaves which appears on the altar in his painting Clytie (Leighton House), which was left unfinished in his studio at the time of his death.

P.76-1917