Currently not on view
After Vespers,
1871
After Vespers epitomizes the delicacy and refinement that Leighton’s Victorian clients appreciated. The setting features mosaics evoking the interior of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The painting’s subject, however, is less the magnificent sanctuary than an enigmatic young woman. Her gold earrings and beads mark her elevated social status, and she gently lifts her skirt to keep it off the dusty floor. Her melancholy expression hints, perhaps, at unrequited love.
Information
1871
Europe, Italy, Venice, St Mark's Basilica
Christie's 26 March, 1892, lot 93 (bourght by Blair); E.N. Buxton, sale Christie's, 10 March, 1916, lot 92 (bought by Mitchell); G.R. Macdougall, his sale Christie's, 24 May 1918, lot 8; Christie's, ca. 1960, bought Old Hall Gallery; bought by Art Museum, Princeton University
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The exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1872: the one hundreth and fourth. (London: Clowes and Sons, 1872).
, no. 171 - Henry Morley, "Pictures at the Royal Academy", Fortnightly review 17, no. 66 (Jun. 1, 1872): p. 692-704., p. 692-704
- Ernest Rhys, Sir Frederic Leighton, Bart., P.R.A.: An illustrated chronicle, (London: George Bell & Sons, 1895)., p. 68
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Ernest Rhys, Frederick Lord Leighton, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1900).
, p. 31, 125 - Edgecombe Staley, Lord Leighton of Stretton, (London: W. Scott; New York: C. Scribner's, 1906)., p. 89, 237
- Emilie Isabel Wilson Barrington, The life, letters and work of Frederic Leighton, (New York: Macmillan, 1906)., Vol. 2: p. 385
- Mark Roskill, "Ingres: master of the modern crisis", Art news 60, no. 2 (Apr., 1961)., p. 57, fig. 5
- "Recent acquisitions", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 21, no. 1 (1962): p. 25-27, p. 26
- Ellen Eisenberg, Hommage à Baudelaire: Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867, (College Park, MD?: University of Maryland 1968)., p. 59, 89 (illus.)
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Leonee Ormand and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, (New Haven: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (London) by Yale University Press, 1975).
, p. 161, no. 200 - Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 252 (illus.)
- John Christian, Victorian dreamers: masterpieces of neo-classical and aesthetic movements in Britain, (Tokyo?: British Council?, 1989)., p. 34, 110, fig. 13
- Christopher Newall, The art of Lord Leighton, (Oxford: Phaidon, 1990)., p. 80; p. 81 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 349
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 121
