The Last Watch Of Hero by Frederic Lord Leighton Antique Print Picture 1910 #36

Description: The Last Watch Of Hero by Frederic Lord Leighton Antique Print 1910A colour print from a disbound art book from 1910. The reverse side is blank. Suitable for framing, the actual picture size is approx 6.25" x 10.875" or 16 cm x 25 cm printed on textured paper and one side mounted to heavyweight textured paper which forms a border. Page size including border mount approx 8.25" x 12.875" This is an antique print from 1910 not a modern copy and does show signs of age or previous use commensurate with the age of the print including foxing or marks on the surrounding mount. Please view the scans as they form part of the description. All pictures will be sent bagged and in a board backed envelope for protection in transit. While every care is taken to ensure my scans or photos accurately represent the item offered for sale, due to differences in monitors and internet pages my pictures may not be an exact match in brightness or contrast to the actual item. Text taken from the opposite page. Please note this cannot be supplied with the print. Any spelling errors are due to the OCR program used. THE LAST WATCH OF HERO By LORD LEIGHTON, P.R.A. (1830-1896) IN THE MANCHESTER ART GALLERY It was in the illustration of classic myth and story that Lord Leighton found his chief delight and achieved his greatest success. His archoIogical knowledge was profound—although not always insisted upon, as is the case in the work of some other painters of classic subjects—and there is no question that the style of his art was entirely suited to the presentation of ancient Greek heroines. The statuesque—almost sculpturesque—forms depicted on his canvases were ideally classic in presentation and feeling. The story of Hero and Leander ranks among the most humanly probable of the old stories. I never think of poor Leander's fate, And how he swam, and how his bride sat late, And watched the dreadful dawnings of the light, But as I would of two that died last night. So might they now have lived, and so have died; The story's heart, to me, still beats against its side." The priestess of Venus at Sestos, debarred from marriage by her position, was loved by Leander, a youth of Abydos, on the other side of the Hellespont. Every night the ardent lover swam the distance of about four miles, guided by a light that burned on a tower under the direction of Hero. So the courtship was carried on for a long period, but there came a night of tempest in which the beacon was extinguished and poor Leander was driven from his course to death. Hero waited in vain for her lover, and when morning dawned there was revealed to her the dead body of Leander wave-washed on the rocks. Grief possessed her to distraction ; she flung herself into the sea to meet the same death that had overtaken her devoted lover. In a predella Lord Leighton painted the scene, on the rocky shore with the body of Leander lying across a great boulder. The story has been dealt with in poetry by Marlowe, Schiller, and Leigh Hunt. It is a point of interest that Lord Byron was prompted to attempt Leander's feat of swimming the Dardanelles (as the Hellespont is now known) and accomplished it in 1 hour 10 minutes.

Price: 3.49 GBP

Location: Dereham

End Time: 2025-01-11T23:55:13.000Z

Shipping Cost: 20.09 GBP