Cymon and Iphigenia

According to a story published in 1897, Leighton spent six months searching throughout Europe for a model to match his imagined ideal of Iphigenia for his intended portrayal of Cymon and Iphigenia. He saw a young actress, Dorothy Dene, in a theatre in London and his search was over. Possessing a classical Greek style beauty, Dene had golden wavy hair with excellent skin texture and colouration on her face; she was taller than average with graceful arms and legs together with an “exquisitely moulded bust”. She appeared in several other of Leighton's works, including Greek Girls Playing Ball and Summer Moon. Lena, one of Dene's younger sisters, appears in the painting as the child slave. Other paintings by Leighton featuring Dene are: The Bath of Psyche, Clytie, Perseus and Andromeda, Solitude, The Return of Persephone and The Vestal. The painting took eight months to complete; a succession of line drawings were done first as Leighton tried to capture the position he wanted for the central figure, around 56 – including several of foliage and other elements of the piece – of these are known to exist. The English art critic Peter Nahum describes the painting as "central among Leighton's later works", an opinion Mrs Russell Barrington considered was shared by Leighton. Leighton's painting Idyll dating from a few years earlier has some similar elements but lacks the complexities of Cymon and Iphigenia. The two compositions each highlight the difference between the fair complexion of a female with a dark skinned male; both feature a full-length woman reclining beneath a tree and similar lighting techniques are used.