Interior of a Mosque or Mimbar of the Great Mosque at Damascus

Details

Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A. (1830-1896)
Interior of a Mosque or Mimbar of the Great Mosque at Damascus
oil on canvas
12¼ x 9½ in. (31 x 24 cm.)

Provenance

The artist's studio sale; Christie's, London, 13 July 1896, lot 189, (20½ gns. to Dunthorn)
Possibly Col. J.B.Gaskell, his sale; Christie's, London, 3 May 1926, lot 250 (10 gns. to Sampson).
Anon. sale; Lawson's, Sydney, 19 April 1996, lot 206 (as 'English School, 19th century').

Literature

E. Rhys, Lord Leighton, late president of the Royal Academy of Arts, 3rd edition, 1900, p. 29, illustrated pl. 10 i. Leonee and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, New Haven and London, p. 162, no. 217, as untraced.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Leighton was powerfully attracted to the Middle East, visiting Asia Minor in 1867, Egypt in 1868, and Damascus in 1873. All these expeditions inflected the classicism of his work with an element of oriental fantasy, but that to Damascus gave him particular inspiration. It resulted in two fine interiors Old Damascus: Jew's Quarter, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, and the picture for which the present lot is a sketch, Portions of the Interior of the Grand Mosque of Damascus (Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston) which appeared at the Royal Academy in 1875 (no. 215). The expedition also led to a series of 'fancy' pictures: Moorish Garden: A Dream of Granada, Music Lesson, and Study: at a Reading Desk, while it found its most permanent expression in the construction of the Arab Hall in Leighton House. Built to house the startling blue and Iznik ceramic tiles collected on his travels, it was thought to be the most perfect recreation of an Oriental interior in London.

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