Which famous architect is meeting their end? The great British art quiz

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK sets the questions.

Today our questions are from Leighton House Museum, the former home of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton. The only purpose-built studio house in the UK that is open to the public, it contains a significant collection of paintings and sculpture by Leighton and his contemporaries.

You can see art from Leighton House Museum on Art UK here. Find out more on the museum’s website here.

1. 

   Many of Frederic Leighton’s early paintings took their inspiration from the Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari’s text The Lives of the Artists. It includes this painting that shows the death of which famous figure?

   1. Cimabue

   2. Donatello

   3. Giotto

   4. Brunelleschi

2. 

   The woman depicted in this portrait was a close friend of Leighton and George Frederic Watts – and a painter herself. What was her name?

   1. Joanna Boyce Wells

   2. Emilie Barrington

   3. Georgiana Burne-Jones

   4. Evelyn de Morgan

3. 

   Which British artist and illustrator designed the mosaic in this image?

   1. William Morris

   2. Charles Voysey

   3. Walter Crane

   4. Aubrey Beardsley

4. 

   Leighton’s friend and fellow artist Giovanni Costa also shared his admiration of landscapes. What was the name of the informal art school associated with Costa?

   1. The Scythians

   2. The Romans

   3. The Phoenicians

   4. The Etruscans

5. 

   Leighton was a keen traveller and during his trips he would make small landscape studies of the places he visited. Which city is shown in this work?

   1. Damascus

   2. Cairo

   3. Granada

   4. Algiers

6. 

   As part of a lengthy preparatory process, Leighton created colour sketches for all of his major paintings. Which painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1892, does this colour sketch relate to?

   1. Helios and Rhodes

   2. And the Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were in It

   3. The Fisherman and the Syren

   4. The Garden of Hesperides

7. 

   In this portrait, Mrs H Evans Gordon, nee May Sartoris, is shown wearing a particular type of clothing fashionable among the artistic upper classes in the late 19th century. What was its name?

   1. Pre-Raphaelite style

   2. Aesthetic dress

   3. Liberty-wear

   4. The Kensington gown

8. 

   When the painter William Quiller Orchardson saw Clytie in progress in Leighton’s studio, he said the artist had "done nothing finer than the sky". What location inspired the painting’s sunset?

   1. Donegal, Ireland

   2. Holy Island, Northumberland

   3. Moray, Scotland

   4. Kynance Cove, Cornwall

Solutions

1:D - Filippo Brunelleschi was the architect of the dome of Florence Cathedral, which can be seen through the window in Leighton’s painting. This was one of the last paintings Leighton produced as a student in Frankfurt, and he gave it to his tutor Eduard von Steinle as a parting gift. Several members of Leighton’s family appear in the work including his father, as the artist Donatello – who stands behind Brunelleschi in the centre of the canvas. Image: The Death of Brunelleschi, 1852, Frederick Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House Museum , 2:B - Emilie Barrington was an artist and writer who lived near both Leighton and Watts in Holland Park, the heart of the most prestigious artists' colony in London at the time. She collected their works, and eventually became the biographer of both artists. She was instrumental in saving and running Leighton House immediately after the painter’s death in 1896. Image: Mrs Russell Barrington (the artist Emilie Isabel Barrington), Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919). Credit: Leighton House, 3:C - Crane was best known as an illustrator of nostalgic children’s literature, and was a talented painter and designer. He was commissioned by Leighton to design a set of mosaics to embellish Arab Hall at Leighton house. Image: Detail of Mosaic Frieze by Walter Crane (1845-1915), Arab Hall. Credit: Leighton House Museum , 4:D - The Etruscans were a group of painters who adored the Italian landscape. From 1883, they regularly visited Italy and sought a particular type of landscape, often horizontal, with mountains or coastal plains distant in the background. Members of the group included George Howard and William Blake Richmond. Costa, one of the leaders of the Etruscan School, was born in Rome and lived for a period in Tuscany. Image: Professor Giovanni Costa, c1878, Frederick Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House , 5:A - This colour sketch is of a minaret that Leighton saw in Damascus when visiting in 1873. It was during this trip that he purchased a number of the tiles that he would later display in the Arab Hall. He was taken by the charm of some of the old buildings in the city, and was able to capture the particular effects of light and nuances of local colour. Image: Damascus (Moonlight), c1873, Frederic Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House, 6:B - And the Sea Gave Up the Dead Which Were in It was commissioned by Henry Tate, and the final painting to which this sketch relates is now in the Tate collection. The painting is based on the revelation of St John the Divine, and the design was intended to decorate the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral as a mosaic, but the scheme never came to fruition. Image: Colour Sketch for And the Sea Gave up the Dead That Were in It, c1892, Frederic Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House, 7:B - Aesthetic dress was a loose-fitting style of clothing based on historical costume. It was favoured by key figures of the arts and crafts movement such as Jane Morris as a healthier alternative to the tightly corseted dresses that dominated in the Victorian era. Aesthetic dresses were often made from sumptuous fabrics such as velvet and used rich colours like the warm russet robe in this painting. Image: Mrs H Evans Gordon, nee May Sartoris, 1875, Frederic Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House , 8:A - Leighton visited Donegal in 1874 and made several sketches of the landscape, including a small painting of Mullenmore Island and a lost oil work, believed to be the source of the sunset in the final composition of Clytie. It was one of Leighton’s last paintings and was left unfinished in his studio at the time of his death in 1896. Image: Clytie, 1895, Frederic Leighton (1830-96). Credit: Leighton House

Scores

1. 8 and above.

   A brush with greatness!

2. 7 and above.

   A great impression!

3. 6 and above.

   A good impression

4. 5 and above.

   A good impression

5. 4 and above.

   A decent impression

6. 3 and above.

   Could be worse…

7. 2 and above.

   Start brushing up!

8. 0 and above.

   Start brushing up!

9. 1 and above.

   Start brushing up!