Winding the skein

Leighton’s pristine vision of the antique world is set on a terrace overlooking the bay of Lindos, a view studied by the artist on his visit to the island of Rhodes in 1867 (see the oil sketch below). There is a contrast between the humble domesticity of the task and the heroic classicism of its presentation. In 1878 Henry James described the picture as ‘quite the most strictly beautiful – indeed, I think the only very beautiful – work in the Academy’.