Flaming June

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Flaming June: Frederic Leighton

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Frederic Leighton Oil Painting - Flaming June

Keywords: Flaming, June

Work Overview: Flaming June
Artist Frederic Leighton
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 120 cm × 120 cm (47 in × 47 in)
Location Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Flaming June is a painting by Sir Frederic Leighton, produced in 1895. Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch (1,200 mm × 1,200 mm) square canvas, it is widely considered to be Leighton's magnum opus, showing his classicist nature. It is thought that the woman portrayed alludes to the figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads the Greeks often sculpted.

Flaming June disappeared from view in the early 1900s and was only rediscovered in the 1960s. It was auctioned shortly after, during a period of time known to be difficult for selling Victorian era paintings, where it failed to sell for its low reserve price of US$140 (the equivalent of $1,126 in modern prices). After the auction, it was promptly purchased by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where it currently resides.

Flaming June was first begun as a motif to adorn a marble bath in one of Leighton's other works, Summer Slumber. He became so attached to the design that he decided to create it as a painting in its own right.

The funereal solemnity of Michelangelo's monumental nude has been considerably warmed up, by the Victorian painter, in the act of appropriating and adapting it. Leighton has arranged matters in such a way that, although clothed, his somnolent girl's many charms are alluringly displayed for the delectation of the viewer – who is implictly put in the position of a voyeur... Her cheeks are flushed, reddened with a blush suggesting that somehow she knows she is being watched, even though she is sleeping.[1]
According to art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon "her pose is loosely modelled on that of Michelangelo's famous statue of Night, in the Medici Tombs in Florence, which Leighton regarded as one of the supreme achievements of Western art."[1] The position of the sleeping woman gave Leighton a great deal of trouble. He made several preliminary sketches to determine the way in which she should lie; in particular he had difficulty making the angle of her right arm look natural. His studies show that the picture went through at least four evolutionary sketches before Leighton came to the end result. Out of these studies, four are nude and one is draped.[2] The draped figure looks the least lifelike, demonstrating Leighton's need to draw from a naked model to achieve a fidelity to nature.

The toxic oleander branch in the top right possibly symbolizes the fragile link between sleep and death.[3]

Flaming June has become Leighton's most recognisable picture. Samuel Courtauld, founder of the Courtauld Institute, called it “the most wonderful painting in existence”.[4] The realism of the transparent material worn by the sleeping woman, the stunningly rich colours and the perfectly recreated marble surround are characteristic of Leighton's work, as is his use of natural light. He allows the sunset in the background to appear as molten gold.

While the body of the woman remains a mystery, there is speculation that the face is that of either of Leighton’s two favourite models in the 1890s, Dorothy Dene[11][12] or Mary Lloyd.[13][14]

Mary Lloyd was the daughter of an impoverished country squire. She came to London and established a highly successful career as an artist’s mode, posing only for the head and hands, and not nude – an important distinction. She started posing for Leighton in about 1892, was requested to come to pose in January 1895 for Leighton’s Lachrymae (1894-5). She is probably also the model for his ‘Twixt Hope and Fear (c.1895).

Flaming June: The Making of an Icon (4 November 2016 - 2 April 2017) is a landmark exhibition for Leighton House Museum, returning Leighton’s most famous and celebrated work to the artist's house from the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), was one of the pre-eminent artists of his day. President of the Royal Academy from 1878 to 1896, he achieved great fame and influence as a figurehead for art in late Victorian society; a period when art enjoyed unprecedented public interest and appreciation.

Depicting a sensual, sun-drenched, sleeping female figure wrapped in orange draperies against a Mediterranean backdrop, the exhibition explores the extraordinary story of this picture, from its creation in Leighton’s studio, its first critical reception at the Royal Academy, through its ‘disappearance’ in the middle of the twentieth century, its acquisition by Luis A. Ferré, Governor of Puerto Rico for the Museo de Arte de Ponce in 1963 and subsequent rise to international fame as one of the most memorable and reproduced images in the whole of British art.

Leighton PaintingAt Leighton House Museum, Flaming June is shown beside the other works submitted by Leighton to the Academy that year, all of which were memorably captured and photographed on easels in Leighton’s studio immediately prior to being sent to the Academy in 1895. They make a fascinating and revealing group, representative of themes and subjects that had informed Leighton’s work over the preceding decades. The Maid with Golden Hair, Twixt Hope and Fear and Candida are on loan from private collections with Lachrymae coming from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The re-gathering of these pictures places Flaming June back into the context of its original exhibition, providing a compelling starting-point for exploring its history. Leighton was already unwell with the heart condition that would kill him at the time he made this last Academy submission. The assembled pictures represent his last statement as an artist and allow a reappraisal of his achievements, relating these five works back to the career that led up to their production and understanding the legacy of a creative life that was close to its end.

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