A Deathbed Scene (in Sketch Book With Drawings on Twenty-six Leaves)
ca. 1849
Medium
Pen and ink, brush and wash and gouache (bodycolor)
Dimensions
Sheet (page): 7 7/8 x 10 7/8 in. (20 x 27.6 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Fletcher Fund, 1942
Accession Number
42.21(8)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate confines of Frederic, Lord Leighton's sketchbook from around 1849, *A Deathbed Scene* a poignant moment of human vulnerability. Created when Leighton was just 19 this early work reflects the young artist's emerging talent during his formative years studying classical art in Europe. As a future leader of the Victorian art world and President of the Royal Academy, Leighton's sketches reveal his precocious skill in rendering emotion through everyday tragedy—a deathbed surrounded by grieving women and boys, evoking the era's fascination with mortality and familial bonds. Executed ...
About the Artist
Frederic, Lord Leighton · 1830–1896
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton (1830–1896), was born on 3 December 1830 in Scarborough, England, to a prosperous medical family. His father, Dr. Frederic Septimus Leighton, and mother, Augusta Susan, provided him with financial security throughout his life, while his grandfather, Sir James Boniface Leighton, had served as physician to Russian tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I. After early ed...