Friendship and Loss in the Victorian Portrait

Previously announcedThis original and eloquent study brings Frederic Leightons portrait of May Sartoris to life as an expression of the artists remarkable friendship with Mays mother, celebrated opera singer Adelaide Sartoris. The young Leighton frequented Adelaides artistic and literary salon in Rome in the early 1850s, and was on intimate terms with her by the time he painted her daughters likeness in England around 1860. Malcolm Warner places the work both within the tradition of British child portraiture since Joshua Reynolds and within its immediate biographical setting. Bringing together much new research into the circumstances of its creation, he suggests that its wistful mood and intimations of mortality reflect Adelaide Sartoriss melancholy temperament as well as Victorian views of childhood. Distributed for the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth