Victorian artwork bought by Blackburn in exhibition (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Victorian artwork bought by Blackburn in exhibition
2:17pm Tuesday 12th April 2011 in Art
ON SHOW he painting Mother and Child owned by Blackburn Museum & Art Library
A VICTORIAN oil painting bought for the people of Blackburn for £500 a century ago is one of the star attractions at a major art exhibition in London.
The picture, titled Mother and Child (Cherries), was painted in 1864-1865 by Yorkshire-born artist Lord Leighton, and was then bought by Blackburn in 1911.
Now Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery has loaned the picture to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to be part of a new exhibition which runs until July 17.
It is one of nine pictures and sculptures by Leighton in the exhibition and thought to be worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The current world auction record for a Leighton painting is £1,874,500, the sum paid at Sotheby’s in New York on October 22, 2009, for an oil painting titled Venus Disrobing For The Bath.
The Queen and multi millionaire The Phantom of the Opera composer, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber are both fans of Leighton’s work.
The Queen owns seven of his pictures, while Lloyd Webber owns four.
