Flaming June. Flaming June is a painting by Sir Frederic Leighton, produced in 1895.
Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch square canvas, it is widely considered to be Leighton's magnum opus, showing his classicist nature. It is thought that the woman portrayed alludes to the figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads the Greeks often sculpted.
Flaming June disappeared from view in the early 1900s and was rediscovered only in the 1960s. It was auctioned shortly after, during a period of time known to be difficult for selling Victorian era paintings, where it failed to sell for its low reserve price of US$140.
After the auction, it was promptly purchased by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where it currently resides. Flaming June was first begun as a motif to adorn a marble bath in one of Leighton's other works, Summer Slumber.
He became so attached to the design that he decided to create it as a painting in its own right. The funereal solemnity of Michelangelo's monumental nude has been considerably warmed up, by the Victorian painter, in the act of appropriating and adapting it. Leighton has arranged matters in such a way that, although clothed, his somnolent girl's many charms are alluringly displayed for the delectation of the viewer-who is implicitly put in the position of a voyeur. Her cheeks are flushed, reddened with a blush suggesting that somehow she knows she is be
Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch square canvas, it is widely considered to be Leighton's magnum opus, showing his classicist nature. It is thought that the woman portrayed alludes to the figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads the Greeks often sculpted.
Flaming June disappeared from view in the early 1900s and was rediscovered only in the 1960s. It was auctioned shortly after, during a period of time known to be difficult for selling Victorian era paintings, where it failed to sell for its low reserve price of US$140.
After the auction, it was promptly purchased by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where it currently resides. Flaming June was first begun as a motif to adorn a marble bath in one of Leighton's other works, Summer Slumber.
He became so attached to the design that he decided to create it as a painting in its own right. The funereal solemnity of Michelangelo's monumental nude has been considerably warmed up, by the Victorian painter, in the act of appropriating and adapting it. Leighton has arranged matters in such a way that, although clothed, his somnolent girl's many charms are alluringly displayed for the delectation of the viewer-who is implicitly put in the position of a voyeur. Her cheeks are flushed, reddened with a blush suggesting that somehow she knows she is be
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