Lady Godiva
Edmund Blair Leighton, 1892
Painted in 1892 by Edmund Blair Leighton, this canvas revisits the legend of Lady Godiva as retold in Tennyson's 1840 poem: the countess pleads with her husband, Earl Leofric, to lift the tax weighing on the people of Coventry. Most artists who chose this story showed Godiva riding naked through the streets, but Leighton preferred to avoid that nudity and set the scene at the moment of the bargain, with his heroine fully clothed. He took more trouble than many contemporaries over historical detail, dressing the figures in attempts at authentic Anglo-Saxon costume and building a setting that looks convincing. Godiva is the focus, bracing herself against a table laden with food and drink, as if a meal has been interrupted. Her stunned expression and the hand gripping one of her braids convey dread at the ordeal being proposed. Behind her, a man draws back the doorway curtain to leave, glancing over his shoulder, while hunting dogs wait near his feet. Light and shadow, rich fabrics and carefully rendered textures give the room a sense of authenticity and narrative tension.
- Painter
- Edmund Blair Leighton
- Date
- 1892
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 127 × 152 cm
- Museum
- Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds
- Movement
- Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
- Genre
- genre art, history painting
- Depicts
- Lady Godiva, pitcher, waist-length hair, dog, table, moustache, red hair, part
