r might
have expected to find dusty studies, discarded canvases, and other such
aesthetic remnants,--even that was found to contain not lumber, but a
Sebastian del Piombo, a sketch of Sappho by Delacroix, a landscape by
Costa, a Madonna and Child of Sano di Pietro del Piombo.

At the extreme other end of the main studio was the working studio of
glass, built to combat the fogs by procuring whatever vestige of light
Kensington may accord in its most November moods. The last addition to
the building, not long before Lord Leighton's death, was a gallery,
known as "The Music Room," expressly designed to receive his
pictures--mostly gifts from contemporary artists; or, to speak more
accurately, works that had been exchanged for others in a wholly
non-commercial spirit. These included, _Shelling Peas_, by Sir J. E.
Millais, _The Corner of the Studio_, by Sir L. Alma-Tadema, _The
Haystacks_, and _Venus_, by G. F. Watts, and _Chaucer's Dream of Good
Women_, by Sir E. Burne-Jones.

Such was the daily environment of that hard, unceasing, indefatigable
labour which, natural faculty taken for granted, is always the secret of
an artist's extraordinary production. And it was an environment, as one
felt on leaving it for the gray London without, that well accorded with
the radiant painted procession of the figures, classic and other, that
file through Lord Leighton's pictures.

CHAPTER X

LORD LEIGHTON'S HOUSE IN 1900

In the preceding chapter a picture is drawn of the "House Beautiful," as
it was in Lord Leighton's lifetime. It was then full to overflowing with
all manner of treasures; but now all that were removable have been
dispersed. Only the shell, the house itself, remains. Yet denuded as it
is, that is still well worth looking at. The architectural features to
which Mr. Rhys, dazzled by other things, hardly did justice, are now all
the more apparent.

One of the rarest of all accomplishments, at any rate in England, is a
cultivated taste in architecture; but it so happened that amongst his
many acquirements Lord Leighton possessed it in a remarkable degree. In
fact he received, although a painter by profession, the gold medal of
the Royal Institute of British Architects in virtue of the intimate
knowledge of architecture he had displayed in some of his
backgrounds--for instance, those of the frescoes at South Kensington. It
is a great honour, and one by no means lightly bestowed. At any rate,
when there was a q