Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A.

Comissioned by John Duke, 1st Baron Coleridge and thence by family descent

London, Royal Academy, 1888, no.373
London, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, 1891, no. 154
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by the Late Lord Leighton of Stretton, P.R.A., 1897, no. 31

Leighton's stylish and elegant portrait of Lady Coleridge shows a young woman wearing an evening gown of white and pink silk. In her left hand is an ostrich feather fan, with a pink ribbon. She wears no jewellery, other than wedding and engagement rings. Clearly, Amy Coleridge was a woman of great beauty, and is shown as such seated in an interior with a red velvet drapery forming the backdrop. Appearing quite relaxed and entirely comfortable in the process of being painted, she faces to the left, but with her head turned directly towards the spectator and with a subtle smile.

The sitter was the daughter of Henry Baring Lawford of the Bengal Civil Service. She met the widowed Lord Coleridge on his return from a tour of America undertaken in 1883 as a guest of the New York Bar Association. They were married in London two years later. By then Lord Coleridge had risen to the very height of his profession, having been made Lord Chief Justice of England in 1880 by his friend Gladstone. The year this stunning portrait was exhibited he was presiding over the celebrated racing libel case Wood vs Cox. Three years later he famously called H.R.H. The Prince of Wales to the stand in the great Baccarat case, Gordon-Cummings vs. Wilson.

By the time he commissioned this portrait, Lord Coleridge had clearly known Leighton for some years, as is indicated by an almost affectionate letter written to the painter in 1878 on the occasion of his becoming president of the Royal Academy: "Let me add one voice more, small but true, to the great chorus of applause with which your election has been greeted. It might seem left handed praise to say that your election was the only possible one; but it is very true praise to say it was the only possible one if the highest interests of English Art, and of the Academy itself, were the sole object of the electors" (quoted Mrs Russell Barrington, Life Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, Two volumes, London, 1906, II, p.227).

Leighton was not a prolific portraitist, and seems always to have been on guard against allowing his professional practice to sink to that of a portrait manufactory (as certainly happened to a number of his contemporaries). As president of the Royal Academy, he knew very well that there was an over-supply of portraits to the summer exhibitions in London- both because people in society wanted to see paintings of themselves and of their families exhibited in public displays, and because the artists themselves were eager to show off their latest works in the hope of receiving further and even more munificent commissions. It is because Leighton was careful not to paint too many that he was able to bring a fresh approach to each commission, creating over the years a series of highly distinctive, beautifully wrought and imaginative depictions of some of the greatest people of the era.

There was a further impediment to Leighton becoming depended on portrait commissions. He was at heart a shy man who hesitated to intrude into the personalities of his sitters. The best of his portraits were therefore of men and women who he was fond of and with whom he felt at ease. Among his female sitters, most were rather younger than him, and it seems were individuals of marked temperament. Although Amy Coleridge was not apparently part of Leighton's immediate circle, it seems likely that she was someone whom he liked and found personally appealing and sympathetic. Certainly a warmth of personality can be felt in the present portrait.

The portrait of Amy Coleridge reveals Leighton's search for a new style of portraiture which lent itself to the representation of aristocratic figures combined with a quality of psychological immediacy and likeness. In this sense Leighton may be seen as the inventor of a new and modern style of portrait painting, which was to be carried forward by two of his well-known contemporaries, John Singer Sargent and James Jebusa Shannon.

Leighton's portrait of Amy Coleridge was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888. This was a brilliant year for the artist, as his other work on display that summer was the stupendous and multi-figured Captive Andromache (Manchester Art Gallery), which was universally recognised both as the most remarkable picture of the season and as Leighton's greatest and most ambitious painting to date. Yet despite the distraction of this great painting, the Coleridge portrait received positive critical attention, being praised particularly by the Magazine of Art: "In his portrait of "Lady Coleridge" in evening costume, Sir Frederick has painted with more than his usual brilliancy". Attention was drawn to the charm of the expression as well as the elegance of the figure, and particular admiration expressed for the treatment of the woman's dress: "The greyish satin dress and light pink feather fan are rendered with extraordinary verve and dash" (Magazine of Art, 1888, p.240).