The Bath of Psyche' (1890 ; Millbank Gallery), 'Perseus and Andromeda' (1891), The Garden of the Hesperides' (1892), and 'Rizpah' (1893). His last important works were the wall decoration on canvas for the Royal Exchange, 'Phœnicians trading with the Britons,' finished in 1895, and an unfinished 'Clyde,' which was at the 1896 academy. On 11 Feb. 1886 Leighton had been created a baronet.
Early in 1895 his health had given disquieting signs of collapse. He was ordered to cease all work, and to take rest in a warm climate. Prompt obedience to his doctor gave him temporary relief from his most distressing symptoms. Sir John Millais, who was himself beginning to suffer from the disease which was afterwards to prove fatal, took his place at the academy dinner, and did what he could to lighten his colleague's anxieties. It was hoped that these prompt measures had proved more or less effectual, and when Leighton returned to England late in 1895, the immediate danger was thought to have passed away. On 1 Jan. 1896 it was announced that he was to be raised to the peerage as Baron Leighton of Stretton. His patent bore date 24 Jan., and on the following day Leighton died at his house in Holland Park Road; his peerage, which 'existed but a day, is unique' (G. E. C[okayne], Complete Peerage, viii. 245). He was buried on 3 Feb. in St. Paul's, the coffin being inscribed with his style as a peer.
Lord Leighton was an honorary D.C.L. of Oxford, a LL.D. of Cambridge, and a LL.D. of Edinburgh, all of which degrees were conferred in 1879. He was a member of many foreign artistic societies. He was president of the international jury of painting for the Paris Exhibition of 1878. He was a member of the Society of Painters in Watercolours from 1888 onwards. He was for many years colonel of the artists' regiment of volunteers, but resigned the post in 1883. He was unmarried. His heirs were his two sisters, Mrs. Sutherland Orr and Mrs. Matthews. After his death a movement was set afoot to establish a memorial museum in his own house in Kensington, a project which, in spite of controversy, was realised. A large number of those drawings and studies on which his fame will rest perhaps most securely in the future have found a home in what was once his studio.
It is recorded that Leighton used to assert of himself that he was not a great painter. 'Thank goodness,' he also declared, 'I was never clever at anything!' The first of these assertions was truer than the second. He was not a great painter. He lacked both temperament and creative power, and had nothing particular to say with paint. On the other hand he saw beauty and could let us see that he saw it. He was clever in the best sense, and by dint of taking thought could clothe his intentions in a pleasant envelope. Occasionally he failed disastrously through pure lack of humour, as, for instance, in his 'Andromeda;' on the other hand, the frankness of his objective admirations led him occasionally to success of a very unusual kind in such pictures as 'Summer Moon,' ' The Music Lesson,' and 'Wedded.' In spite of his training under various good draughtsmen, Leighton was not a great draughtsman himself. His forms were soft, the attaches especially — wrists, ankles, &c. — being nerveless and inefficient, a fault which was accentuated by the unreality of his textures. But in design, as distinguished from draughtsmanship, he is often as nearly great as a man without creative genius can be. His studies of drapery are exquisite, and nothing could well be more rhythmical than the organisation of line in such pictures as the three just mentioned. Leighton contributed designs to George Eliot's novel of 'Romola' and to 'Dalziel's Bible,' which take a very high place among illustrations in black and white; also one design each for Mrs. Browning's poem, 'The Great God Pan,' and Mrs. Sartoris's 'Week in a French Country House,' both published in the 'Cornhill Magazine.'
Lord Leighton delivered biennially eight discourses at the Royal Academy between 1879 and 1893. They formed a series tracing the development of art in Europe, and dealing philosophically with the chief phases through which it passed; they were published as 'Addresses delivered to Students of the Royal Academy,' London, 1896, 8vo ; 2nd ed. 1897.
The contents of Lord Leighton's studio were sold at Christie's in July 1896, when the studies, especially those of landscape in oil, were eagerly competed for. A catalogue of his principal works is appended to the short biography by Mr. Ernest Rhys, published in 1900.
His portrait by himself is in the famous collection of artists' portraits in the Uffizi at Florence ; another, by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
[Times, 26 Jan. 1896; Athenæum, January 1896 ; Life and Work of Sir Frederic Leighton, P.R.A., by Helen Zimmern; Frederic, Lord Leighton, by Ernest Rhys, 1895 ; private information.]
