A Victorian Obsession

Delightful exhibition at Leighton House looking at the representation of female beauty in the Victorian and Edwardian eras based on the collection of Juan Antonio Perez Simon.

I’d never been to Leighton House before so I have to start by saying how amazing that is. I just loved the Arab Hall complete with pool and William de Morgan tiles and the lovely studio space upstairs. The exhibition fit so well with the décor.

Leighton of course was well represented in the exhibition including the lovely “Greek girls picking up pebbles by the sea” and studies for it. There were also some nice Rossetti’s and Burne Jones’s  but most interesting were the artists I had not heard of before such as William Clarke Wontner and John William Godward.

As ever I love the silliness of Alma-Tadema. I liked the fact he started off being true to Medieval and classical life and it was great to see the coach he had made with a Greek and an Egyptian side as well as a picture using it. However I also love when he goes over the top and I think my favourite picture was one of a string quartet in classical garb complete with 19th instruments! Why would anyone play a violin while wrapped in a leopard skin and wearing no knickers!

A nice touch was showing Alma-Tadema’s wonderful “Roses of Heliogabalus” in a room scented with roses! I did wonder if the scent was psychosomatic at first!

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