Chalk study for Leighton’s oil painting ‘Solitude’, now in Maryhill Museum of Fine Arts collection, Washington. See also BrD29a for another study of the same subject. Solitude was inspired by studies the artist made of the Lynn of Dee near Braemar, Scotland. He described the spot to his sister as a location where “the vehemence of winter has scooped and worn pools so deep that . . . you come at last to absolute dark brown night . . . no sound, no faintest gurgle even reaches your ear; the silent mystery of it all absolutely invades and possesses you; that is what I vainly tried to put into my Solitude.”
A more worked up version of this drawing appeared in: Spielmann., M. H. “Current Art. Royal Academy, — I.” Magazine of Art (1890). London: Cassell and Company. Pp. 217-21.
