Focus on this artwork and analyze the Provenance.
The painting's first owners, The Graphic magazine, bought it to create a high-quality reproduction which was given away as a Christmas gift in 1895. When Leighton died in January 1896 it was put in their office window which was passed by the funeral procession.
It was loaned to the Ashmolean Museum in early 1900s; its whereabouts after this are unknown. The painting was rediscovered in a Battersea home in the early 1960s, boxed in over a chimney. Andrew Lloyd Webber saw it soon afterwards in a shop on the Kings Road, but his grandmother refused to lend him the £50 asking price, stating: "I will not have Victorian junk in my flat".In 1963 Luis A. Ferré – the noted Puerto Rican industrialist and politician, who would be elected governor five years later – was on a trip around Europe, engaged in purchasing paintings and sculptures for the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, which he had founded. "It’s extremely curious to know that this work of such late Victorian importance was bought in Amsterdam by Luis A. Ferre for less than $1,000 dollars in 1960."Once it was part of Museo de Arte de Ponce's collection, it became its symbol and most recognized artwork. Since then, the painting has been loaned to important museums around the world including Museo del Prado in Madrid in 2008, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in Germany in 2009 and in the Frick Collection in New York City in 2015.In 2016 the painting was loaned to the Leighton House Museum in Kensington, and was displayed in the studio where it was created.
In 2015 an original pencil and chalk study for the painting – the model's head – was found on the back of a bedroom door in the mansion inherited by Bamber Gascoigne after the death of his great aunt Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe.In 2023 Leighton's only known colour study for the painting, a small work in oil, was presented to Leighton House Museum by Sir David Verey.
Amsterdam The Graphic New York City Luis A. Ferré David Verey Leighton House Museum Ashmolean Museum governor industrialist Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Bamber Gascoigne Museo del Prado Museo de Arte de Ponce Andrew Lloyd Webber Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe Frick Collection