19/06/2024
Flaming June
Lord Frederic Leighton
oil on canvas
120 cm x 120 cm (~ 4 feet square)
1895
Museo de Arte de Ponce
Ponce, Puerto Rico
FLAMING JUNE:
Lord Leighton’s Lady
What is the definition of a Pre-Raphaelite Woman?
It’s sort of like many things we experience.
Although we might not be able precisely to define it, “we know it when we see it.”
Is Flaming June a Pre-Raphaelite woman?
I don't think so.
The archetypal image (often incorrect and certainly far too simplistic) of a Pre-Raphaelite woman is a tall, willowy, often red-haired, lady in a long flowing dress. Think of the many sylphs pictorially represented Dante Gabriel Rossetti or John Waterhouse, as but several examples.
The visages of Pre-Raphaelite women are often harsh, angular, stern, and severe: think of the Beata Beatrix idealizations of Elizabeth Siddal by DGR.
Beauty is, of course, subjective.
These women are not conventional beauties (at least not to me), and certainly not in the way they were depicted by the Pre-Raphaelite “Brotherhood,” although they are often mesmerizing.
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The great academic and historical painter Frederick Lord Leighton (1830-1896) was not a Pre-Raphaelite painter, nor was he of their “Brotherhood.”
Leighton’s works were extremely popular, and extremely expensive, during his lifetime. Yet curiously, his works fell out of favor after he died.
The painting shown here, entitled Flaming June, is Leighton’s Magnum Opus.
It underscores Leighton’s classicist training and extraordinarily confident technique.
The frame at the top is a Renaissance (or perhaps early Nederlandisch) trope. Leighton’s technical mastery is evidenced in the finely wrought folds in the woman’s negligee.
It is a negligee, isn’t it, in its diaphanous reveal of the woman's body?
It is thought that the woman who is portrayed alludes to those figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads sculpted by ancient Greek masters.
Her thigh seems overly long- Leighton Neo-mannerism through Ingres, perhaps 🙂
The orange in the painting is intense, luscious, delicious, deep. It evokes the orange that conveys the orange in my mind when I think of my alma mater Princeton, as well as every succulent orange I have ever eaten.
The toxic oleander, that we see in the top right, is a metaphor for the intersection of sleep (Somnos) and Death (Thanatos).
So, dear readers, is this painting also a type of Vanitas ?
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I post the painting frequently.
I really like it.
I bought the one meter by one meter print of it when the original painting was on loan at the Frick Collection in 2016 , in that great collection’s splendid Oval Room.
She was also back in NYC last fall, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Who was June? Does “Flaming” refer to the Orange or to her persona?
If June herself is a wraith, and never existed, then who was the model for Leighton for this painting?
I did some digging on this, and found out the following:
While the body of the woman remains a mystery, there is speculation that the face is of one of Leighton’s two favorite models of the 1890s: Dorothy Dene, or Mary Lloyd.
Mary Lloyd was the daughter of an impoverished country squire. She came to London and established her career as an artist's model, posing only for head and hands. She started posing for Leighton in about 1892, and was also asked to pose in January 1895 for Leighton’s Lachrymae and this painting, Flaming June. Lloyd was also the model for his 1895 painting, “Twixt Hope and Fear.’ “
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The painting languished for sixty years, mostly in Paris, until 1959, when, after failing to meet the low reserve at auction, it was eventually purchased for 5,000 British Pounds.
The buyer was Luis A. Ferré, Governor of Puerto Rico, who established the Museo Arte de Ponce initially to display his paintings.
The painting today can be found in that very same Museum of Art.
