In 1867 Leighton visited Lindos on the Greek island of Rhodes, and sketched
local models on the roof terrace of a whitwashed house, as well as recording
views of the wide bay and the hills beyond the town. He returned to these
sources in about 1877 after travelling to Spain in search of a beautiful October
sky to accompany this two-figure composition of girls winding a skein of
worsted. The weather on that trip was disappointing — he artist noted that he
had a right to expect "the clear, keen autumn weather, after the air has been
well swept and purged by the equinoctial broom and pail" — so the more distant
recollection of golden sunlight over the Bay of Lindos was presumably closer to
what Leighton had in mind for this painting. The location is clearly
identifiable by the so-called Tomb of Cleobolos which may be seen at the end of
the promontory that juts out to the far right.
In 1895 Ernest Rhys remarked that subjects of this kind, the "idealization of a familiar occupationÑso that it is lifted out of a local or casual sphere, into the permanent sphere of classic art, is characteristic of the whole of Leighton's work." Yet it also had the distinct classical association with the Fates (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos — who drew, measured and cut their thread). One of Leighton's regular models, a girl called Connie Gilchrist, posed for the figure of the child. She appears in two famous paintings of the previous year, Music lesson (London, Guildhall Art Gallery) and Study: At a reading desk (Liverpool, Sudley House). . . . The picture was engraved, and went to the Royal Academy in 1878.
In 1895 Ernest Rhys remarked that subjects of this kind, the "idealization of a familiar occupationÑso that it is lifted out of a local or casual sphere, into the permanent sphere of classic art, is characteristic of the whole of Leighton's work." Yet it also had the distinct classical association with the Fates (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos — who drew, measured and cut their thread). One of Leighton's regular models, a girl called Connie Gilchrist, posed for the figure of the child. She appears in two famous paintings of the previous year, Music lesson (London, Guildhall Art Gallery) and Study: At a reading desk (Liverpool, Sudley House). . . . The picture was engraved, and went to the Royal Academy in 1878.
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