Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A.

Sir David Salomons, Bart.
Sale: Sotheby's Belgravia, May 9, 1976, lot 49, illustrated
Sale: Sotheby's Belgravia,  June 14, 1977, lot 41, illustrated
Forbes Magazine Collection, New York
Kurt E. Schon, Ltd., New Orleans
Callan Fine Art, New Orleans
Acquired from the above by the present owner in April 1999

London, Royal Academy, 1867, no. 500

Anthenaeum, 1867, p. 594
Art Journal, 1884, p. 122, illustrated opposite (engraved by H. Bourne)
F. G. Stephens, "List of Exhibited Works," Sir Frederic Leighton Bart., P.R.A., London, 1895, p. 68
Mrs. Russell Barrington, The Life, Letters, and Works of Frederic Leighton, London, 1906, vol. II, p. 384
Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, New Haven, 1975, pp. 87, 157, no. 129
Stephen Jones, Christopher Newall, Leonée Ormond, Richard Ormond and Benedict Read, Frederic, Lord Leighton, Eminent Victorian Artist, London, 1986, p. 145
Joseph A. Kestner, Mythology and Misogyny: The Social Discourse of Nineteenth-Century British Classical-Subject Painting, Madison, Wisconsin, 1989, pp. 161-162
Rosemary Barrow, "Drapery, Sculpture and the Praxitelean Ideal," in Frederic Leighton: Antiquity Renaissance Modernity, eds. Tim Barringer and Elizabeth Prettejohn, New Haven, 1999, p. 51

By the middle of the nineteenth century archeological explorations had uncovered a wealth of fourth-century architecture and statuary from sites in Greece and Asia Minor. In particular the British Museum acquired an impressive list of finds, and built great rooms to hold the collections and crowds of visitors (Barrow, p. 50).  Among the treasures were objects like the terracotta group of 'knucklebone' (astragalos) players (fig. 1)  Such items shed new light on the artistic sophistication of the ancient Greeks, particularly in their delicate modeling of the human form and drapery, and also revealed aspects of daily life.  The surge of interest in Hellenistic culture held a strong sway over Victorian painters eager for new inspirations.  Indeed the poet and theorist Matthew Arnold extolled that “a great human action of a thousand years ago is more interesting… than a smaller action of to-day” (Poems, 1853, preface in The Poems of Matthew Arnold, ed. K. Allot, 1965, as quoted in Ormond, Lord Leighton, p. 85).  While earlier neo-classical artists like David or Ingres attempted to re-create the ancient world, often with moral or political allusions, the appeal of the genre to artists like Leighton was in its possibilities for aesthetic expression.  In particular Leighton believed masterworks of Greek art were created by “peoples filled with a love of beauty and achieving the highest excellence in its embodiment” (as quoted in Barrow, p. 49). In looking toward objects such as the terracotta of figures at play, with The Knucklebone Player, Leighton choose not to paint an epic mythological or historical scene but a simpler scene of Greek life creating his own “artifact” of contemporary classical aesthetics.

Most likely painted in 1867, The Knucklebone Player was one of five classical works Leighton exhibited that year at the Royal Academy (Ormond, Lord Leighton, p. 87).  As suggested by the terracotta figures, Leighton’s model plays a round of “knucklebones,” a type of early dice or jacks game which often doubled as a fortune telling device.  The game was played with five six sided tarsal bones (known as astragali) of a sheep or a goat.  The idea of the game was to throw the bones into the air, catching as many as possible on the back of one hand. Children and young women were most often depicted as the players, and Leighton’s model, with her hair tied back in red ribbon, soft complexion, and nubile body, resembles the ancient representations.  Four of the player’s pieces are in the air while she glances at the one fallen bone, face-up, the “good luck” side, the results of the gods' good guidance. The figure’s dress is a simple tunic characteristic of sculpture of the period and exemplifies Leighton's early experimentation with gauze-like drapery (Barrow, p. 51). Nut-brown skin is revealed beneath diaphanous fabric, which clings to the player’s legs, spilling against the wall on which she sits. Each wispy or weighted fold is perfectly executed and reveals labored study. Indeed, as Leighton told a friend "I can paint a figure in three days, but it may take me thirty to drape it" (J. Harlow, The Charm of Leighton, 1913, p. 38 as quoted in Richard Jenkyns, Dignity and Decadence, Victorian Art and the Classical Inheritance, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992, p. 214).  Yet for its close attention to detail, the work overall is serenely formed of simple geometries and large blocks of color, allowing for a pure appreciation of the painted form.

In its depiction of a Greek activity and its brilliant visual quality, The Athenaeum noted The Knucklebone Player  “illustrates that immemorial game with great felicity in coloring and drapery” (p. 594).  The work reveals the artists’ decision to evoke classical models while suggesting a new experimentation with painterly expression.  Stripped of the dramas of a mythological scene and certainly far removed from the costume dramas or genre scenes so prevalent in nineteenth century painting, Leighton described the process as his “growth from multiplicity to simplicity," using classical traditions to experiment with “modern” thoughts and feelings (as quoted in Ormond, Lord Leighton, p. 85).  While an early work of the period, in its expressive brushstrokes and rich colouring, The Knucklebone Player is easily enjoyed as a singular object of beauty.  Algernon Charles Swinburn (while not a great admirer of Leighton) could not help but agree "for the selection and intention of his subjects---always noble or beautiful as they are, always worthy of a great and grave art; a thing how inexpressibly laudable and admirable in a time so largely given over to the school of slashed breeches and the school of blowsy babyhood” (The Complete Works of... Swinburne, eds. E. Gosse and T. Wise, 1925-27, vol. 15, p. 198, as quoted in Jenkyns, p. 214).