Flaming June is a painting by Sir Frederic Leighton, produced in 1895. Painted with oil paints on a 47-by-47-inch (1,200 mm × 1,200 mm) square canvas, it is widely considered to be Leighton’s best-known work in the 21st century, much reproduced in posters and the like. It shows a sensuous version of his classicist Academic style. It is thought that the woman portrayed alludes to the figures of sleeping nymphs and naiads the Greeks often sculpted.
The painting’s subject is straightforward: a sleeping woman. Leighton channeled the motif’s long history—specifically, Michelangelo’s sculpture Night—and its associations with beauty, sensuality, tranquility, and vulnerability. Even without knowing the painting’s title, we can guess the season. The sun blazes on the water, and peeking over the wall is oleander, which blooms most profusely in May and June.
Despite the shade provided by the golden awning, the woman’s cheek and ear are flushed. Clad in a semitransparent coverup, unaware that she is being watched, Leighton’s sleeper invites the viewer’s gaze. This invitation is the essential element that draws, and holds, our attention—an opportunity for uncomplicated contemplation of a beautiful body.
The Model in the painting Was Likely the Stage Actress Dorothy Dene
The woman who is widely believed to have inspired Flaming June was Dorothy Dene, a friend and frequent model for Leighton. Born Ada Pullen, Dene was 19 years old when she met the 50-year-old artist. Pullen was the daughter of an impoverished engineer who worked as a model to support her family.
Under Leighton’s guidance, Pullen changed her name to Dorothy Dene as an actress. In fact, it is believed that George Bernard Shaw based his play Pygmalion on the relationship between Dene and Leighton. Over the course of more than 17 years, Dene became his most frequent model, and the artist encouraged his colleagues, including John Everett Millais, to use her as a model. She appeared in numerous paintings, including The Bath of Psyche (1890), Cymon and Iphigenia (1884), and The Jealousy of Simoetha the Sorceress (1887).
The pair came from vastly different worlds and maintained separate but nearby homes, but letters seem to suggest that, at least in continental Europe, Dene was known among fellow artists as Leighton’s wife. When the artist died, he left Dene £5,000 and £5,000 in a trust for her family (a sum bordering £1 million in today’s money).
Flaming June disappeared from view in the 1930s and was rediscovered in the 1960s. It was auctioned shortly after, during a period of time known to be difficult for selling Victorian era paintings, where it failed to sell for its low reserve price of US$140 (the equivalent of $1,126 in modern prices). After the auction, it was promptly purchased by the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It is currently on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it will be on display until February 2024.[1]
Today, Flaming June is known as the “Mona Lisa of the Southern Hemisphere.”
