Eyes wide shut
Unconscious women, be they sleeping, entranced or dead, are a bit of a fixture in Victorian painting. Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Flaming June is one of the most famous; the other is Millais’s drowning Ophelia.
Dream lover
Leighton’s sleeping beauty, though, seems untroubled. The painting is a peachy confection. It blooms with tantalising, luxurious life. She’s both physically present yet psychically remote, lost in a dream.
Teacher’s pet
Some have suggested that the model is Leighton’s muse, the actor Dorothy Dene. He paid for her elocution lessons and their relationship apparently inspired George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.
Rags to riches
The painting is so ubiquitous today, it’s hard to believe it was lost for 30 years following its removal from the Ashmolean. Andrew Lloyd Webber spotted it for £50 in an antiques shop in the 1960s but his granny refused to lend him the dosh. Today, Puerto Rico’s Museo de Arte de Ponce is its regular home, where it’s known as the Mona Lisa of the southern hemisphere.
Flaming June: The Making Of An Icon, Leighton House Museum, W14, to 2 Apr
