Leighton, Frederic ( Baron Leighton of Stretton) (
b Scarborough, 3 Dec. 1830;
d London, 25 Jan. 1896). English painter and sculptor, one of the dominant figures of late Victorian art. The son of a doctor who gave up his practice and travelled widely on the Continent, Leighton gained his artistic education successively in Frankfurt, Rome, and Paris. It was not until 1859 that he settled in England, but he had earlier made his name with
Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna is Carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence, which he painted in Rome; it was exhibited at the 1855
Royal Academy exhibition and bought by Queen Victoria (it is now on loan from the Royal Collection to the National Gallery, London). In spite of this success, Leighton was for several years regarded as an alien presence in the British art world, but from the mid-1860s he enjoyed a degree of worldly success that was matched perhaps only by
Millais, his almost exact contemporary; he became president of the Royal Academy in 1878, was made a baronet in 1886, and a few days before he died was raised to the peerage, the first English artist to be so honoured. Intelligent, cultured, and of distinguished appearance (although rather austere), he was one of the chief adornments of London society. His varied output included portraits and book illustrations, but he is best known for his paintings of classical Greek subjects, the finest of which are distinguished by magnificently opulent colouring as well as splendid draughtsmanship (
Garden of the Hesperides, 1892, Lady Lever AG, Port Sunlight). As a sculptor he is best known for the bronze
Athlete Struggling with a Python (1874–7), which can be seen in Leighton House (on loan from Tate Britain), the sumptuously decorated house and studio he built in Holland Park Road, Kensington, now a Leighton museum.