Needless Alarms

Leighton's third and most unusual sculpture, Needless Alarms was exhibited alongside his second and more widely known work, The Sluggard, at the Royal Academy in 1886 (no. 1922). In its depiction of a young girl turning away in fright from a toad at her feet, the work conforms to a favourite pre-occupation of the New Sculptors, that of presenting the youthful naked form in strong contraposto. Unlike The Sluggard and his celebrated work of 1877, An Athlete wrestling with a Python (see lot 43), both large-scale sculptures, Needless Alarms falls quite definitely into the category of the statuette, and its appeal to a less literary public as a decorative object for the domestic interior is re-enforced by the obvious humour with which the figure has been imbued. This fact was emphasised by Leonora Lang, critic for the Art Journal, who wrote in 1886 that Leighton had 'never done anything more charming, or that appealed to a larger number'.