LEIGHTON HOUSE 
I do not know how long it was after this that permission was 
given for thirteen women students—Helen Paterson and the late 
Edith Martineau among them—to work in the schools, but as this 
took place in the days when the Royal Academy occupied rooms 
in the National Gallery—and was cramped for space—the number 
working there at one time never exceeded the proverbial baker’s 
dozen. 
Yet notwithstanding that they were so greatly in the minority, 
a young American lady—Louisa Starr, afterwards Madame Canziani 
—first woman to win the gold medal for historical painting over 
the head of her more favoured fellow-students, had proved, before 
~the Academy removed to Burlington House, that women were 
capable of becoming good painters. 
It was in the seventies, after the migration to Piccadilly, that 
the restrictions as to number were abolished ; but for a long time 
after this women were debarred from attendance at anatomical 
lectures, and denied the study of the figure from life—a branch of 
art-education that is of first importance, and for which, in the case 
of the men, every facility was afforded. In my time we were 
limited to drawing from the antique, and painting drapery on the 
lay-figure, to still-life, copying old masters, and to painting heads 
from the costume model in the Upper Painting School. There, of 
course, we had the benefit of the instruction of the greatest artists 
of the day. 
I have heard it objected to the Academy training that the change 
of masters monthly, must confuse the student ; Millais, Calderon, 
and Pettie, for example, in my time, advocating the practice which 
seeks to get at once as near to nature as possible ; Leighton, recom- 
mending an elaborate preparation, by under-painting; but in a 
multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, and a student of capacity, 
while learning something from each, may be trusted to adopt the 
practice that suits him best, bringing all to the test of his own 
experience : not many of us, I think, adopted one dear old Acade- 
mician’s recipe for flesh-painting, which, whether the model posing 
were a brunette or a blonde, was invariably ‘black, white, and 
indian red.” 
These reminiscences of very happy days, are leading one by a 
very circuitous route to the garden of Leighton House; but Lord 
Leighton’s last words were, “‘ Give my love to the Royal Academy,” 
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