'The Judgement of Paris', 1825-6
In handing the apple to Aphrodite, goddess of Love, in preference to her rivals Hera and Athena, Paris sets in train the events that will lead to the Trojan wars. This is one of Etty’s largest and most celebrated history paintings, painted for the 4th Earl of Darnley and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826. Etty used as his sources Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving of Raphael’s Judgement of Paris, and an engraving by John Flaxman from his illustrations to the Iliad.
‘Leda and the Swan’ 1898- 1900
Maurice Ferrary (1852 – 1904). Marble, green onyx and bronze, height 50.08cm
This work illustrates the Greek myth in which Zeus, the king of the gods, seduces Leda after visiting her in the form of a swan. It is a topic that has fascinated artists for centuries. It has been illustrated by da Vinci, Michelangelo and Boucher, as well as writers and poets such as W. B. Yeats.
When this work was first exhibited at the 1898 Salon, the figure of Leda was made from ivory. At the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle, where Lever bought the piece, the figure was marble. Like ‘Salammbo’, Ferrary’s other piece in the gallery, this work displays languid sensuality and dark eroticism.
‘Geniuses representing the Pleasures of the Elysian Fields’ 1789
Between 1788 and 1790 Wedgwood commissioned some thirty wax models to be made in Rome, copying ancient relief sculptures in the Capitoline Museum. He was able to use the illustrations in a recently published catalogue of the museum collection as a guide.This model was made by Giuseppe Angelini copying a Roman funerary urn, and was later used as a design on a lilac jasper flower pot. The Elysian Fields were believed to be the home of the blessed in the afterlife.
‘The Wedding Morning’ 1892
John Henry Frederick Bacon (1866 – 1913). Oil on canvas 118 x 163cm
Leverhulme bought this painting from the 1892 Royal Academy private view, specifically for use as an advertisement for Sunlight Soap. It shows a young bride, preparing for her wedding day and surrounded, as is every new bride, by well-wishers and curious onlookers.
The painting received mixed reviews at its first showing. It was described by critics as both ‘an essay in lighting’ and as being ‘hackneyed’. Lever himself described it as ‘only a moderate picture, but very suitable for a soap advertisement’.
In the advertisement, bars of Sunlight Soap were substituted for the clock on the mantelpiece and for the cup and saucer on the table.