Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A., R.W.S

‘And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did drink, and laid him down again. And the Angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.’ (1^st Book of Kings, 19.5-7)

This powerful sketch was made in preparation for the monumental work Elijah in the Wilderness, now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. It was made essentially to harmonise the colour and tone of the large painting but these oil sketches now have a compelling immediacy which make them fascinating works of art in the own right. Similar examples were included in the sale of ‘The Family Collection of the late Countess Mountbatten of Burma’ (Sotheby’s, London, 24 March 2021, lots 55, 56 and 57).

Elijah in the Wilderness was painted circa 1877-8 and takes its subject from the 1^st Book of Kings, chapter 19. In a barren, stony wilderness a radiant guardian angel brings food and water to the sleeping, figure of Elijah to give him strength to endure his forty days and nights in the desert. The muscular, tormented figure of Elijah was influenced by a statue from classical antiquity known as the Barberini Faun, in the Glyptothek in Munich. This figure perfectly captures Leighton’s scrupulous study of anatomy in his paintings – contorted muscles conveying the theme of struggle and sacrifice. Leighton had first learnt the importance of making studies of the naked figure during his formative years as student where he was also taught to take inspiration from the work of sculptors from antiquity and also the likes of Michelangelo whose influence can also be seen here. Perhaps as an acknowledgment of his debt to his training on the Continent, Leighton chose to exhibit the finished picture for the first time at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878.