(London 1853–1922)
"The Confessional", signed, dated E. Blair Leighton. 1886, oil on canvas, 92 x 119  cm, framed

Provenance:
From the artist to Lieutenant Colonel John Allen Bindley (1833–1914), Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire/Bournemouth, England, 1886;
Private Collection, Italy.

Exhibited:
London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1886, no. 512.

Catalogued in:
A. Yockney, The Art Annual: The Art of E. Blair Leighton, London Virtue & Co, Christmas 1913, p. 28;
The Modern School of Art, Volume VI, Cassell & Company, p. 54;
A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, volume 5, p.29;
Exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1886, p. 22, no. 512.

We are grateful to Kara Lysandra Ross for kindly confirming the authenticity on the basis of high-resolution photographs.

This work will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné.

"The Confessional" is an important rediscovery within Edmund Blair Leighton’s oeuvre. It was painted and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1886 and has not appeared on the open market for many years.

Edmund Blair Leighton was one of the late Victorian Romantics. He was a historical genre painter who found success with the classical and medieval subjects popular at the time.
He attended evening classes at the South Kensington School of Art and at Heatherley’s School of Painting. He entered the Royal Academy in 1874, where he remained for five years.
His subjects are derived from literary sources such as Shakespeare with medieval heroes and heroines as well as seventeenth and eighteenth-century scenes. In the present lot the viewer is positioned as a witness to the scene. The artist plays with the viewer’s emotions and the psychological tension is typical of his oeuvre.
He exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1878 to 1920, and his most popular pictures were reproduced in photogravure.