The Syracusan Bride Leading Wild Animals in Procession to the Temple of Diana, also known as A Syracusan Bride Leading Wild Beasts in Procession to the Altar of Diana, is an oil painting by the English artist Frederic Leighton, which was first exhibited, to a favourable reception, at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1866.
Description
A terrace of white marble, whose line is reflected and repeated by the line of white clouds in the sky, affords the setting for the figures of the procession. [1] The Syracusan bride leads a lioness, and these are followed by a train of maidens and wild beasts. [1] The procession is seen approaching the door of the temple, and a statue of Diana. [1]
Background
The subject was suggested by a passage in the second Idyll of Theocritus. [2] "One day came Anaxo daughter of Eubulus our way, came a-basket-bearing in procession to the temple of Artemis, with a ring of many beasts about her, a lioness one." [3] Sketches for portions of the picture and the squared tracing for the complete design can be seen in the Leighton House Collection. [2] The full-length portrait of Mrs. James Guthrie was exhibited the same year as this second processional picture, which appeared on the walls of the Academy eleven years after the Cimabue's Madonna. [2] The head of the central figure, the Bride, Leighton painted from Mrs. Guthrie. [2]
Appraisal
The Syracusan Bride was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1866 and in the Paris International Exhibition in 1868. [4] Russell Barrington, writing in 1906, praised the "richness of arrangement combined with the fair aerial atmosphere appropriate to a Grecian scene". [5]
References
Sources
Attribution: 
This article incorporates text from these sources, which are in the
public domain.
- Barrington, Russell (1906). The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Baron Leighton of Stretton. Vol. 2. London: George Allen, Ruskin House. pp. 10–11, 15, 124–125, 191, 384.
- Edmonds, J. M. (1912). The Greek Bucolic Poets: Theocritus, Bion, Moschus. (Loeb Classical Library). London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co. p. 31.
- Staley, Edgcumbe (1906). Lord Leighton of Stretton. London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 70–71, 219–220.
Further reading
- Ash, Russell (1995). Lord Leighton. London: Pavilion Books Limited. pp. 12, 37, pl. 11.
- Jones, Stephen, et al. (1996). Frederic Leighton, 1830–1896. Royal Academy of Arts, London: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. pp. 15–16, 35–36, 78, 107, 119, 138, 141–143, 145, 204, 234, cat. 35.
- Ormond, Leonée; Ormond, Richard (1975). Lord Leighton. London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. pl. 104.
- Rhys, Ernest (1900). Frederic Lord Leighton: An Illustrated Record of his Life and Work. London: George Bell & Sons. pp. 23–24, 34, 47, 124.
- Wood, Christopher (1983). Olympian Dreamers: Victorian Classical Painters, 1860–1914. London: Constable. p. 47.
- "Exhibition at the Royal Academy". The Illustrated London News, 48 (12 May 1866): p. 474.