Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, PRA (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter. Leighton was the bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history; after only one day his hereditary peerage became extinct upon his death.

Leighton was born in Scarborough to Augusta Susan and Dr. Frederic Septimus Leighton. He had two sisters including Alexandra who was Robert Browning's biographer. He was educated at University College School, London. He then received his artistic training on the European continent, first from Eduard von Steinle and then from Giovanni Costa. At age 17, in the summer of 1847, he met the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in Frankfurt and drew his portrait, in graphite and gouache on paper — the only known full-length study of Schopenhauer done from life. When he was 24 he was in Florence; he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, and painted the procession of the Cimabue Madonna through the Borgo Allegri. From 1855 to 1859 he lived in Paris, where he met Ingres, Delacroix, Corot and Millet.

In 1860, he moved to London, where he associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. He designed Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tomb for Robert Browning in the English Cemetery, Florence in 1861. In 1864 he became an associate of the Royal Academy and in 1878 he became its President (1878–96). His 1877 sculpture, Athlete Wrestling with a Python, was considered at its time to inaugurate a renaissance in contemporary British sculpture, referred to as the New Sculpture. American art critic Earl Shinn claimed at the time that "Except Leighton, there is scarce any one capable of putting up a correct frescoed figure in the archway of the Kensington Museum." His paintings represented Britain at the great 1900 Paris Exhibition.

Leighton was knighted at Windsor in 1878, and was created a baronet, of Holland Park Road in the Parish of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, in the County of Middlesex, eight years later. He was the first painter to be given a peerage, in the 1896 New Year Honours. The patent creating him Baron Leighton, of Stretton in the County of Shropshire, was issued on 24 January 1896; Leighton died the next day of angina pectoris

On his death Leighton's barony was extinguished after existing for only a day; this is a record in the Peerage. His house in Holland Park, London has been turned into a museum, the Leighton House Museum. It contains many of his drawings and paintings, as well as some of his former art collection including works by Old Masters and his contemporaries such as a painting dedicated to Leighton by Sir John Everett Millais. The house also features many of Leighton's inspirations, including his collection of Iznik tiles. Its centrepiece is the magnificent Arab Hall. The Hall is featured in issue ten of Cornucopia. A blue plaque commemorates Leighton at Leighton House Museum.

Leighton was an enthusiastic volunteer soldier, enrolling with the first group to join the 38th Middlesex (Artists') Rifle Volunteer Corps (later to be known as the Artists Rifles).

His qualities of leadership were immediately identified, and he was promoted to command a Company within a few months. On 6 January 1869 Captain Leighton was elected to command the Artists Rifles by a general meeting of the corps. In the same year he was promoted to major and in 1875 to lieutenant colonel. Leighton resigned as commanding officer in 1883. The painter James Whistler famously described the then, Sir Frederic Leighton, the commanding officer of the Artists Rifles, as the: “Colonel of the Royal Academy and the President of the Artists Rifles – aye, and he paints a little!" At his funeral, on 3 February 1896, his coffin was carried into St Paul's Cathedral, past a guard of honour formed by the Artists Rifles.

François Boucher, né le 29 septembre 1703 à Paris où il est mort le 30 mai 1770, est un peintre français, représentatif du style rococo.

Maître particulièrement prolifique, Boucher a abordé tous les genres : peinture religieuse, sujets mythologiques, scènes rustiques, paysages, animaux, décorations de monuments et de maisons particulières, modèles de tapisserie. C’est peut-être le plus célèbre peintre et artiste décoratif du xviiie siècle, dont on a pu dire qu’il était l’un des génies les plus purs. Il estimait lui-même, un an avant sa mort, avoir produit plus de dix mille dessins, mais trouvait encore le temps de travailler dix heures par jour à des représentations idylliques et voluptueuses de thèmes classiques, mythologiques et érotiques, d’allégories décoratives et de scènes pastorales. Nombre de ces toiles, réalisées pour la décoration intérieure, constituent des paires ou des séries. Il était peintre de la cour de Louis XV et le favori de la marquise de Pompadour, dont il a peint plusieurs portraits.

Fils unique d’Élisabeth Lemesle et de Nicolas Boucher, maître peintre et dessinateur de l’Académie de Saint-Luc, il reçoit les premières leçons de son père, mais il montrait de telles dispositions que celui-ci décida de le faire travailler sous une direction plus qualifiée que la sienne.

Vers 1720, il entre, âgé de 17 ans, dans l’atelier de Lemoyne, qui l’initia aux secrets de la peinture décorative et des grandes scènes mythologiques, dans lesquelles il était spécialisé. Il ne resta que fort peu de temps dans cet atelier de Lemoyne, quelques mois à peine.

Pour se procurer les ressources nécessaires pour vivre, il dut accepter des travaux de dessin et de gravure du graveur et éditeur Jean-François Cars. Ses premiers essais décidèrent le collectionneur Jean de Jullienne à lui passer commandes de gravures d'après Watteau.

Cette période de son apprentissage fut des plus profitables à Boucher qui trouva dans les œuvres de Watteau, qui venait de mourir, en 1722, tous les éléments de sa propre inspiration. Très épris de son art, il voulait entrer à I‘Académie et s’efforçait de perfectionner sa technique, travaillant à la fois le dessin, la gravure et la peinture.

Il se forma également auprès de Sebastiano Ricci et Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, actifs à Paris dans les années 17208.

En 1723, il concourut au prix de l’Académie de peinture, en attendant qu’une pension pût lui être attribuée pour l’Académie de France à Rome, il continua à graver pour Jullienne. En 1725, il exposait pour la première fois, quelques tableaux à l’Exposition de la jeunesse de la place Dauphine.

​Deux ans plus tard, en 1727, ayant réuni quelque argent,  il partit pour Rome, comme élève libre. À peine arrivé, Boucher se mit au travail.

Après un séjour de près de quatre années en Italie, il rentra à Paris.

Agréé dès son retour à l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, le 24 novembre 1731, il devint immédiatement le peintre mondain, le portraitiste semi-officiel des femmes à la mode, épouses ou maîtresses des financiers, gagnant une fortune rapide et un renom considérable.

Les commandes commencent à affluer, et c’est de 1732 que date la réalisation de Renaud et Armide, inspiré de la Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse, où le modèle de la blonde Armide est Marie-Jeanne Buseau, la jeune fille de 17 ans qu’il épousera le 21 avril 1733. Au dire de ses contemporains, Marie-Jeanne était remarquablement jolie, et Boucher semble s’en être souvent inspiré dans ses créations de jeunes beautés radieuses et triomphantes. Elle posa également pour d'autres peintres de leur entourage comme La Tour, Lundberg ou le peintre suédois Roslin. Marie-Jeanne Boucher travailla avec son mari, grava quelques-uns de ses dessins, et reproduisit en miniature plusieurs de ses tableaux.

Le 30 janvier 1734, il est reçu comme peintre d'histoire, à l’Académie royale sur présentation de son tableau de 1732, Renaud et Armide, aujourd’hui conservé au Louvre, et Oudry. 

Le 2 juillet 1735, il est nommé, avec Carle Van Loo et Natoire, adjoint à professeur de l'Académie.

Même s'il a été marqué par le style du peintre Lemoyne, Boucher trouve vers 1736 son style propre en devenant, en peinture, le maître incontesté du style rocaille. Principal peintre du rococo français, il devient le peintre à la mode. Il obtient la faveur de Madame de Pompadour dont il fera à plusieurs reprises, le portrait et composera pour elle ses œuvres les plus raffinées dans les années 1650, ainsi que des décors pour son château de Bellevue et pour son boudoir de Crécy. 

Il travaille également pour de hauts personnages de la cour, comme le duc de Penthièvren  ou pour des souverains étrangers (Le Triomphe de Vénus en 1740 pour le roi de Suède). Il est un grand ami du général Montmorency.

En 1765, il succède à Carle Van Loo comme Premier peintre de Louis XV. Travaillant avec une extrême facilité, il se vante d'avoir gagné jusqu'à 50 000 francs par an. Il participe à la décoration des châteaux de Versailles et de Fontainebleau, à celle du cabinet des Médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale (1741-1746).

Il invente des décors pour le théâtre et l'opéra et donne aussi de nombreux modèles à la manufacture de Vincennes de 1750 à 1755 puis à la manufacture royale de Sèvres, essentiellement entre 1757 et 1767. Ses figures d'enfants, dits Enfants Boucher sont traduites sous forme de motifs peints ou de biscuits et également de petites pièces de tapisseries destinées à l'ameublement.

Associé avec le marchand d'art Edme-François Gersaint, François Boucher est l'introducteur du goût pour les chinoiseries, des objets et des artéfacts venant de Chine, du Japon ou du royaume de Siam. Certains de ses objets apparaissent en second plan dans ses tableaux " La toilette, 1742" ( Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid,) ou " Femme allongée au divan" (Frick Collection, New York). 

Son style passe de mode avec l'arrivée du néoclassicisme vers 1760. Jusqu'à sa mort, en 1770, Boucher garde son style et expose ses œuvres au Salon, excepté lors de l'édition 1767.

François Boucher (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes. He was perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century.

A native of Paris, Boucher was the son of a lesser known painter Nicolas Boucher, who gave him his first artistic training. At the age of seventeen, a painting by Boucher was admired by the painter François Lemoyne who later appointed Boucher as his apprentice, but after only three months, he went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars.

In 1720, he won the elite Grand Prix de Rome for painting, but did not take up the consequential opportunity to study in Italy until five years later, due to financial problems at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

On his return from studying in Italy for about 4 years, Boucher was admitted to the refounded Académie de peinture et de sculpture on 24 November 1731. 

Boucher married Marie-Jeanne Buzeau, whom he used as his model for his painting Rinaldo and Armida of 1734

Boucher became a faculty member in 1734 and his career accelerated from this point as he was promoted Professor then Rector of the Academy, becoming inspector at the Royal Gobelins Manufactory and finally Premier Peintre du Roi (First Painter of the King) in 1765.

Boucher died on 30 May 1770 in his native Paris. His name, along with that of his patron Madame de Pompadour, had become synonymous with the French Rococo style, leading the Goncourt brothers to write: "Boucher is one of those men who represent the taste of a century, who express, personify and embody it."

Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee (or Frank Bernard Dicksee) was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic literary, historical, and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time.

Francis Bernard Dicksee was born at a time when the first wave of Pre-Raphaelitism was beginning to make its presence felt in Britain and he inherited the romantic spirit of the movement that had been founded only a stone's throw from his childhood home in the Bloomsbury area of London.. After early success with his painting of unrequited love, Harmony, he rose to be one of the most popular artists of the late 19th-century, painting in a sumptuous and dramatic style.

Dicksee's family was a veritable dynasty of artists,  his father, brother, and sister Margaret were all well-known painters, but it is Francis who is best known and loved today for his Pre-Raphaelite inspired subjects.

Dicksee's father, Thomas Dicksee, was a painter who taught Frank as well as his sister Margaret from a young age. Dicksee enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1870. Amongst the visiting lecturers who trained him, were the famous senior academicians Leighton [1830-1896] and Millais [1829-1896]. Dicksee was a star student, earning many distinctions and medals.

Like many other artists of the day his early career was largely spent in book illustration, as well as some stained glass window design. He started exhibiting at the RA in the mid 1870s, and also exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, though his real base was always the Academy. Dicksee made his reputation with Harmony, exhibited at the Academy in 1877, and bought by the Chantry Bequest.

Many of his pictures were of dramatic historical and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of elegant, highly-finished portraits of fashionable women, which of course helped to bring him material success.

He also painted landscapes. Dicksee lived in St John's Wood, and remained a bachelor. He was, of course, one of the nineteenth century artists who outlived his time, and was, to his credit, very unhappy with developments in the early twentieth century. Rather surprisingly, Dicksee was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1924, fulfilling the role with panache and tact. Physically he was a tall, good-looking, patrician figure, with a charming easy-going manner. Like his predecessor but one Edward Poynter [1836-1919], the traditional orientation of his art gradually isolated him from the artistic mainstream of the day. 

He was knighted in 1925, and named to the Royal Victorian Order by King George V in 1927.

In 1921 Dicksee exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society of Graphic Art in London.

Title: Frank Dicksee:1853-1928: His art and life
​Author: Simon Toll

1932

Fiona Campbell-Walter (born Fiona Frances Elaine Campbell-Walter) was born on 25 June 1932 in Auckland, New Zealand.

1956:  Baroness von Thyssen

On  17 September 1956, in a small Italian village of Castagnola, Fiona was married to Baron Hans Henrik Agost Gabor Tasso Friherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kaszon et Imperfalva, mostly known as Heini von Thyssen, who was heir to a fortune made from steel and arms, and a major art collector whose collection was said to be second only to Queen Elizabeth II.

After her marriage, she lived with her husband in Villa Favorita beside Lake of Lugano, a life of elegance, culture and power. She had two children with  Heini von Thyssen, one daughter named Francesca in 1958, and a son Lorne in 1963, and not long afterwards, she divorced her husband and moved to London with her two children.

Since 1969, Fiona was involved romantically with Alexandre Onassis, the son of Aristote Onassis. who tried to stop the love affair because Fiona was 16b years older than his son Alexandre, but after the death of Alexandre in January 1973, he realized the two never really parted.

And during her short career, Fiona von Thyssen, she has worked with most of the greatest photographers of her time:Henry Clarke, John Deakin, Frances McLaughlin-Gilln, John French, Norman Parkinson, Milton Greene, Georges Dambier, Cecil Beaton and David Bailey.

​Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.

Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809 in Hamburg, at the time an independent city-state into a prominent Jewish family. His father was philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Felix Mendelssohn grew up in an intellectual environment and was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.

Mendelssohn began taking piano lessons from his mother when he was six, and at seven was tutored by Marie Bigot in Paris. Later in Berlin, all four Mendelssohn children studied piano with Ludwig Berger, who was himself a former student of Muzio Clementi. From at least May 1819 Mendelssohn studied counterpoint and composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin whose tastes in music were conservative, was also an admirer of the Bach tradition. This undoubtedly played a significant part in forming Felix Mendelssohn's musical tastes, as his works reflect this study of Baroque and early classical music. His fugues and chorales especially reflect a tonal clarity and use of counterpoint reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach, whose music influenced him deeply.

Mendelssohn probably made his first public concert appearance at the age of nine, when he participated in a chamber music concert accompanying a horn duo. He was a prolific composer from an early age. As an adolescent, his works were often performed at home with a private orchestra for the associates of his wealthy parents amongst the intellectual elite of Berlin. Between the ages of 12 and 14, Mendelssohn wrote 12 string symphonies for such concerts, and a number of chamber works. His first work, a piano quartet, was published when he was 13.

At age 16 Mendelssohn wrote his String Octet in E-flat major, a work which has been regarded as "mark[ing] the beginning of his maturity as a composer."This Octet and his Overture to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which he wrote a year later in 1826, are the best-known of his early works. The Overture is perhaps the earliest example of a concert overture – that is, a piece not written deliberately to accompany a staged performance but to evoke a literary theme in performance on a concert platform.

Besides music, Mendelssohn's education included art, literature, languages, and philosophy. He had a particular interest in classical literature and translated Terence's Andria for his tutor Heyse in 1825 whose impressed and had it published in 1826. This translation also qualified Mendelssohn to study at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where from 1826 to 1829 he attended lectures on aesthetics by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, on history by Eduard Gans, and on geography by Carl Ritter.

In 1821 Zelter introduced Mendelssohn to his friend and correspondent Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (then in his seventies), who was greatly impressed by the child, leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with Mozart in the following conversation between Goethe and Zelter:

Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions, and set a number of Goethe's poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Op. 27, 1828), and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60, 1832)​.

In 1829, with the backing of Zelter and the assistance of the actor Eduard Devrient, Mendelssohn arranged and conducted a performance in Berlin of Bach's St Matthew Passion. The success of this performance, one of the very few since Bach's death and the first ever outside of Leipzig, was the central event in the revival of Bach's music in Germany and, eventually, throughout Europe. It earned Mendelssohn widespread acclaim at the age of 20. It also led to one of the few explicit references which Mendelssohn made to his origins: "To think that it took an actor and a Jew's son to revive the greatest Christian music for the world!"

Over the next few years Mendelssohn travelled widely. His first visit to England was in 1829; other places visited during the 1830s included Vienna, Florence, Milan, Rome and Naples, in all of which he met with local and visiting musicians and artists. These years proved to be the germination for some of his most famous works, including the Hebrides Overture and the Scottish and Italian symphonies.

He became well received in his travels throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist. On Zelter's death in 1832, Mendelssohn had hopes of succeeding him as conductor of the Singakademie; but at a vote in January 1833 he was defeated for the post. Following this rebuff, Mendelssohn divided most of his professional time over the next few years between Britain and Düsseldorf, where he was appointed musical director (his first paid post as a musician) in 1833.

Mendelssohn first visited Britain in 1829, where Moscheles, who had already settled in London, introduced him to influential musical circles.  He made ten visits to Britain, lasting about 20 months, where he composed and performed, and also edited for British publishers the first critical editions of oratorios of Handel and of the organ music of J. S. Bach.

His essentially conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has been re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era.

Mendelssohn married Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud (10 October 1817 – 25 September 1853), the daughter of a French Reformed Church clergyman, on 28 March 1837, and they had 5 children together.

In October 1844, Mendelssohn met Swedish soprano Jenny Lind and they met and worked together many times, and Mendelssohn became increasingly closer to her. Papers confirming their relationship had not been made public. ​

​​Mendelssohn suffered from poor health in the final years of his life, probably aggravated by nervous problems and overwork. A final tour of England left him exhausted and ill, and the death of his sister, Fanny caused him further distress. Less than six months later, on 4 November, aged 38, Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes. Mendelssohn had once described death, in a letter to a stranger, as a place "where it is to be hoped there is still music, but no more sorrow or partings."
​Mendelssohn was an enthusiastic visual artist who worked in pencil and watercolour, a skill which he enjoyed throughout his life. His correspondences indicate that he could write with considerable wit in German and English.