Edmund Leighton

Leighton was the son of the artist Charles Blair Leighton (1823–1855) and Caroline Leighton (née Boosey). He was educated at University College School, leaving at 15 to work for a tea merchant. Wishing to study art, he went to evening classes in South Kensington and then to Heatherley's School in Newman Street, London. Aged 21, he entered the Royal Academy Schools.^[2][3] Among his first commissions were monochrome illustrations for Cassell's Magazine and its Book of British Ballads.^[3] His first painting to be exhibited at the Royal Academy was A Flaw in the Title in 1874; it sold for £200. He soon gave up "black and white" illustrations, working for the rest of his career in oil on canvas.^[3] He married Katherine Nash in 1885; they had a son, the painter E. J. Blair Leighton, and a daughter. He exhibited annually at the Royal Academy until 1920.

Leighton was a fastidious craftsman, producing highly finished, decorative historical paintings. These were romanticised scenes, often of chivalry and women in medieval dress with a popular appeal.^[4] It would appear that he left no diaries, and though he exhibited at the Royal Academy for over forty years, he was never an Academician or an Associate.

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  Old Times (1877)^[5]
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  Till Death Do Us Part (1878)
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  Abelard and his Pupil Heloise (1882)^[6]
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  Faded Laurels (1889)
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  Lady Godiva (1892)^[6]
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  The Elopement (1893)
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  My Next-Door Neighbour (1894)
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  In 1816 (1895)
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  In Time of Peril (1897)^[4]
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  The King and the Beggar-maid (1898) (legend)^[7]
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  Off (1899)^[8]
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  On the Threshold (1900)^[9]
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  God Speed! (1900)
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  The Accolade (1901)^[6]
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  Tristan and Isolde or The End of the Song (1902)
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  Courtship (1903)
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  The Queen kisses the sleeping poet Alain Chartier (1903)^[10]
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  Courtship by the Piano (1903)
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  Ribbons and Laces for Very Pretty Faces (1904)
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  To the Land Unknown (1911)
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  Stitching the Standard (1911)^[11]
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  The Boyhood of Alfred the Great (1913)
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  My Fair Lady (1914)
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  The Charity of Elisabeth of Hungary (1915)
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  The Hostage (1912)

Among Leighton's other works are:

• De Cordova, Rudolph (1905). "The Art of Mr. E. Blair Leighton". The Windsor Magazine. 21 (December 1904 to May 1905). London: Ward, Lock & Co. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016.
• Yockley, Alfred (December 1913). "The Art of Edmund Blair Leighton". Art Annual (Christmas 1913). London: 11, 31, illustrations.