Frederic, Lord Leighton's artworks have a tendency to disappear. Flaming June is perhaps the most famous of those that pulled the vanishing act, but Bay of Cádiz, Moonlight also went missing for a time.
This picture, painted in 1866, during Leighton’s trip to Andalusia, was unusual, not only because it was one of his very few night scenes, but also because it was much less formal than his academic paintings.
After the artist’s death, it and three other works were bought by collector Wickham Flower, which is where the mystery begins. In about 1900, Flower gave some paintings to Leighton House in Kensington. Three of them — A View in Italy, with a cornfield (now A Village on a Hill, Capri), Palazzo Rezzonico and Kynance Cove (since renamed A Rocky Coast, Kynance Cove) — have remained continuously at the London museum, but a catalogue entry of the time reports there was a fourth: Bay of Naples, Moonlight, which was probably the Càdiz canvas mistitled.
Fast forward to 1926, when the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea took over Leighton House and no Bay, of Càdiz or otherwise, appears in the records — nor in any later catalogues. Flower might, of course, have asked for his picture back, but this seems improbable: the work wasn’t included in the sale of his collection after his death in 1904.
The painting resurfaced in 1996, when Christie’s sold it to a private collector on behalf of an anonymous owner.
Although no one knows what happened in the ‘lost decades’, the tale has a happy ending. When Bay of Càdiz, Moonlight was sold again earlier this year, Leighton House managed to acquire it. Now, after more than 120 years, it will go on show at its painter’s former home, as part of the forthcoming ‘Leighton and Landscape: Impressions from Nature’ exhibition (until April 27, 2025)
Carla Passino is the Art and Antiques Editor of Country Life.
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