Frederic, Lord Leighton, P.R.A.

Sir Elliott Lees, Bt

by descent to Sir Thomas Lees, Bt (1975)

Thos. Agnew & Son, London

Roy Miles Fine Paintings Ltd., London

Private Collection, London

Sale: Replica Shoes 's London, 4 June 1997. lot 153

Forbes Collection, Inc.

London, Royal Academy, 1893, no. 105

London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of Works by the late Lord Leighton of Stretton, 1897, no. 13

London, Roy Miles Gallery, Viva Victoriana, 1980, no. 11 (illd in catalogue)

Art Journal, 1893, p. 190

Magazine of Art, 1893, p. 253

The Graphic, 'Paintings and Sculpture from the Royal Academy and the New Gallery', May 1893, illd

Ernest Rhys, Frederic Lord Leighton, 1898, p. 38, illd opposite p. 90

Mrs Russell Barrington, Life Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton, two volumes, London, 1906, II, p. 391

Edgcumbe Staley, Lord Leighton of Stretton, P.R.A., London, 1906, p. 150

Leonée and Richard Ormond, Lord Leighton, London, 1975, pp. 128, 172, cat. no. 374

Quest, 'A House that is not a Home', November 1987, pp. 30-4, illd, p. 30

AD/Londra, 'Caccia al Quadro: La Raccolta Forbes al Old Battersea', vol. XVI, no. 187, December 1996, pp. 61-74, illd, p. 67

Frederic Leighton's Hit, a work of the last years of his life, is one of his more lighthearted but nonetheless carefully devised and crafted paintings. It was warmly received at the 1893 Royal Academy, being admired for what the Magazine of Art called its 'playful grace'. As a work of art it represents the last statement on Leighton's part of a theme that runs through his entire output - that of the companionship and mutual admiration of youths and children of the same sex. Sisters (ex Replica Shoes 's, 19 June 1990, lot 59) of 1862 was a painting of this type, and during the 1870s, in for example Music Lesson (Guildhall Art Gallery, Corporation of London) and Winding the Skein (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney), the artist explored the theme of a shared activity or interest uniting the figures.

These were among Leighton's best loved paintings. Ten years after Leighton's death and a time when his reputation as an artist was entering a period of decline, his biographer Edgcumbe Staley gave the following enthusiastic account of the painting Hit: 'Two living, healthy, comely, nude male forms - a youth and a boy - tell the eloquent story of manliness, self-respect, and emulation. The boy's rounded, softly shaded body is exquisite in its rendering of every juvenile attribute. His eye is kindling with boyish desire. A more beautiful figure it would be hard to conceive. Each line, each proportion, each movement of muscle and pulse are all exactly phrased. The elder youth is equally well drawn - a well-developed, athletic figure of the Greco-Italian blend. He has a leopard-skin about his loins. The sense of harmony is shown in the oneness of the motive of the youths: the elder is teaching the younger how to pull the string of the bow and assisting his arm. The union of pose and action is wonderful. The arrow has but just left the bow and there has not been an interval of time wherein to move. The carnations are rich and full; the fairer skin of the boy is exquisitely foiled by the darker flesh tints of his companion.'