Study for the Ceiling of the Marquand Music Room

Frederic Leighton's study for the ceiling of the Marquand Music Room was a preparatory work for a commission from Henry Gurdon Marquand, one of the great American art collectors of the Gilded Age, for his New York mansion. Marquand commissioned leading European and American artists to decorate his Music Room, and Leighton — President of the Royal Academy and one of the most celebrated artists in the English-speaking world — was a natural choice. The Music Room ceiling allowed Leighton to deploy his expertise in classical figure painting in a setting that linked aesthetic and musical experience.

The ceiling study requires figures designed for overhead viewing: foreshortened forms, upward-facing poses, compositional masses that create a coherent design when viewed from below. Leighton's classical training is evident in the confident drawing of the figures, the warm palette appropriate to allegorical subjects.