Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A.

Christie's, 'The Remaining Works and the Collection of Ancient & Modern Pictures and Water-colour Drawings of the Late Right Honourable Lord Leighton of Stretton', 11 July 1896, lot 116;
John Musker and thence by descent to Sir John Musker, his sale Sotheby's, Belgravia, 15 June 1982, lot 31;
J.S. Maas, London;
Private collection

Royal Academy, 1895, lot 159;
Liverpool Autumn Exhibition, 1895, no.969;
Bradford, 1896;
Royal Academy, Works by the Late Lord Leighton of Stretton, Winter Exhibition, 1897, no.68;
Shepherd Gallery, New York, English Romantic Art 1840-1920 - Pre-Raphaelites, Academics, Symbolists, 1994, no.86

The Magazine of Art, 1895, no.241;
The Art Journal, 1895, p.318;
Ernest Rhys, Frederic Lord Leighton, 1898, p.39;
Alice Corkran, Frederic Leighton, 1904, p.198;
Mrs Russell Barrington, The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, 1906, p.392;
Leonee and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, pp.124, 173, cat.no.391

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd, Fine Art Conservation. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has been lined onto what would appear to be the original keyed wooden stretcher and this is ensuring a sound and secure structural support. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) a line of retouchings parallel to the left vertical turnover edge which cover previous tack holes. 2) Small retouchings on the female figure's forehead, beneath her left eye and on her left cheek, a retouching to the left of her mouth and other tiny spots and lines on her face. 3) An area of retouching on her upper forearm. 4) Small retouchings in the red pigments of the draperies between and beside her thumb and forefinger and in the red pigments just above the lower horizontal framing edge. There are other small scattered retouchings. Summary The painting is therefore in good and stable condition and no further work is required.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

'... in his late career he discovered a new solemnity and power of expression, which resulted in some of his greatest works. Unlike so many English artists, there was no falling away of technical skill or creative imagination, but rather a desire to transcend his earlier achievement with a succession of paintings of stupendous scale and originality.' Frederic Leighton, exhibition catalogue for the Royal Academy, 1996, p.193 

Twixt Hope and Fear was painted in the same year as Leighton's most famous work Flaming June and similarly represents Leighton is his Symbolist phase. It is a glorious study of tertiary and golden hues, dramatic lighting and forceful expression. The picture is essentially abstract in subject, the female figure representing mood and gesture rather than a specific legendary character. The direct gaze of the woman is both challenging and enigmatic and it is unclear whether the title signifies that her emotions are in a state of flux or whether she inspires this feeling in the viewer.

Twixt Hope and Fear is a dramatic and beautiful example of Leighton’s voluptuous mature style when his art was at its most decorous and poetic. By this period in his career he was famous, wealthy, celebrated and experienced and able to paint pictures for their artistic expression rather than to be purely attractive to buyers. Thus his late pictures are arguably his most personal reflection of himself and this picture could be interpreted as a poignant musing on the artist’s own mortality. Perhaps the woman depicted was intended to represent Fame or the Muse of Painting, poised between the hope of success and the fear of failure – an expression of the artistic endeavour that spurred Leighton through his career. Leighton had recently painted a series of single-figure subjects of women alone, introspective and monumental, including Solitude (Maryhill Museum of Art, Washington), Tragic Poetess (private collection) both exhibited in 1890 and The Spirit of the Summit of 1894 (Auckland City Art Gallery) and Lachrymae of 1895 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Unlike his earlier canvases which had strong narratives, this series were celebrations of beauty in classical garb, capturing ‘an earnest sentiment beyond the sincerity of emotion for beauty which evince’ (Mrs Russell Barrington, The Life, Letters and work of Frederic Leighton, 1906, vol II, p.260). Another biographer has described these pictures thus; ‘Beauty and poetic suggestiveness had replaced the idea of truth, knowledge and right action. Like Moore and Whistler, Leighton sought for formal balance in his pictures, harmony of tone and colour, and decorative effect. If her looked back to classical prototypes, he did so through the eyes of a Victorian aesthete, whose primary concern was to please the eye and elevate the imagination of his audience, not to belabour them with the perfection of Greek form.’ (Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, p.85) Whilst Solitude and Lachrymae depict the heavy despair of loneliness and grief, Twixt Hope and Fear captures defiance and vigour. The woman’s erect, confrontational pose, which seems to owe much to Michelangelo’s Sibyls, is in contrast to the limpid poses and wilting draperies of his other canvases. She is not quite an aggressive Clytemnestra but also not a fragile Andromache.

In 1895 Leighton exhibited Twixt Hope and Fear at the Royal Academy alongside Lachrymae, and both are prominent in a photograph of Leighton's studio taken in 1895 in which his recent exhibits are arranged as a display of his artistic prowess. Also among the pictures on the easels is the famous Flaming June (Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico) and The Maid with the Golden Hair (private collection).

The present picture was favourably contrasted with Lachrymae at the Royal Academy exhibition; ‘Twixt Hope and Fear is another single figure, with outstretched arms, less emphatic in colour and more dramatic in sentiment; but that sentiment, it will be noted, is distinctly not of the noisy melodrama of a modern day’ (Magazine of Art, 1895, p.241)

Twixt Hope and Fear depicts Mary Lloyd, the beautiful model that Leighton began to paint around 1893 and continued to employ until his death. Miss Lloyd did not replace the actress Dorothy Dene, who continued to appear in his paintings, but her face does appear in several of Leighton’s last works including Lachrymae, Atalanta (Sotheby’s, New York, 24 May 1988, lot 94a), Corinna of Tanagra (Leighton House) and it has been suggested that she was one of the models used for Flaming June. Leighton’s decision to use another model for some of his later exhibits may have been to play-down rumours that were circulating in society of his relationship with Miss Dene who turned heads for her beauty but gave away her humble origins with her cockney accent. Miss Lloyd was well-suited to an artist who wanted a model whose reputation was beyond doubt; she was the daughter of a bankrupt squire from Shropshire who had been sent to London to make money but because of her relatively high-born background she refused to pose nude for any artist. Mary Lloyd was impeccably professional and posed for many artists including Millais who painted her as The Disciple,  Herbert Draper who used her for The Youth of Ulysses in 1895 (whereabouts unknown), Ralph Peacock, Charles Perugini and Herbert Gustave Schmalz. (For more information see Martin Postle, ‘Leighton’s Lost Model, The Rediscovery of Mary Lloyd’, Apollo, February 1996, pp.27-29) In this painting Leighton depicted Mary leaning over the back of an armchair which is draped an animal-pelt to contrast the texture of her smooth glowing flesh.

Twixt Hope and Fear was owned by John Musker, one of the remarkable class of nineteenth century industrialists and entrepeneurs who made a fortune in retail, primarily by selling tea and margarine. In 1878 Musker, who was a shopkeeper in Liverpool, met Julius Drew (he added an 'e' to his name in 1913) who had recently returned to Britain from China where he was a tea buyer. Musker and Drew set-up in business together and in 1883 they moved to London and opened their first shop on the Edgware Road. In 1885 the two founded The Home and Colonial Trading Association, which sold teas as well as sugar, cured meats, eggs and dairy products. In twenty years they expanded their retail chain to over five hundred stores and they both became very wealthy men - Edwin Lutyens built the vast Castle Drogo for Drewe. In 1895, Musker bought Shadwell Park near Thetford and it is likely that Twixt Hope and Fear was bought a year later from Leighton's studio sale to decorate the walls of his mansion.

Leighton House Museum has requested that the purchaser of this picture lend it to an exhibition planned to open in November 2016 which seeks to reunite the six works that formed Leighton’s final submission to the Royal Academy in 1895.