Brothers in art
Country Life UK|February 21, 2024
IN October 2022, the museum and former home of the celebrated Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton reopened after an award-winning redevelopment. 
Brothers in art

Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, London W14 A property of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

An ambitious redevelopment project has augmented the celebrated interiors of this magnificent studio house. John Goodall reveals how it came into being

This three-year project has focused on the operation and infrastructure of the building, but it has also aimed to reinstate further the principal historic interiors of the house. As a consequence, the visitor today can appreciate more fully than ever the evolution of this property during the lifetime of its creator.

The story of Leighton House properly begins in Italy, with the introduction of the artist and sculptor George Frederick Watts to the British Minister Plenipotentiary to Tuscany and his wife, Lord and Lady Holland, in 1843. Lord Holland was then the prospective heir of Holland House and its estate on the outskirts of London. The Hollands invited Watts to stay with them in Florence until he could find lodgings in the city, but he immediately became a close friend and remained with them as a permanent lodger for nearly four years.

Meanwhile, the young Frederic Leighton, was likewise in Europe. He had been born in Scarborough in 1830, before his family moved to London and then, from 1840, spent long periods abroad. Leighton showed an early enthusiasm for drawing and, as the family moved, he studied in sequence in Germany at the Academy of Art in Berlin, Stellwag's Academy at Frankfurt am Main, the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy, and finally, from the age of 16, in Germany again at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt. This astonishing education accounts for his remarkable facility for languages. He was also an enthusiastic musician.

Esta historia es de la edición February 21, 2024 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición February 21, 2024 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE COUNTRY LIFE UKVer todo
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 27, 2024