In the 1896 Academy _Clytie_ was the only picture. In Lord Leighton's studio in various stages of completion were a _Bacchante_, a half-length figure of a fair-haired girl crowned with leaves, and a leopard skin over her shoulder; _The Fair Persian_, a bust of a girl with flowing dark hair, crowned by a jewelled circlet; and _The Vestal_, a half-length figure of a girl in white drapery, these were all exhibited at the Winter Exhibition of 1897. To _Clytie_, his last picture, a small monograph has been devoted by the Fine Art Society. In this we read: "'Thank goodness my ailment has not interfered with my capacity for work, for I have never had a better appetite for it, nor I believe done better. I was idle for five months in the summer, but since my return I have been working hard and have produced the pictures you see.' Thus he spoke to the present writer [of the monograph in question] as he led the way across his studio.... Turning to the _Clytie_ he continued: 'This I have been at work upon all the morning. Orchardson has been so good as to say I have never done anything finer than the sky. You know the story. I have shown the goddess in adoration before the setting sun, whose last rays are permeating her whole being. With upraised arms she is entreating her beloved one not to forsake her. A flood of golden light saturates the scene, and to carry out my intention, I have changed my model's hair from black to auburn. To the right is a small altar, upon which is an offering of fruit, and upon a pillar beyond I shall show the feet of a statue of Apollo.' "But a few days after this occurrence the dead President lay in semi-state in his coffin, before the picture. A drawing in the 'Graphic' (January 26th, 1896) shows the interior of the studio, with the figure of Clytie, in her attitude of despair, stretching her arms above the body of her creator." Here the record, year by year, is closed. A few pictures seem to have escaped the honours of exhibition. One,[8] _A Noble Lady of Venice_, in possession of Lord Armstrong, does not appear to have been exhibited. It is probably the picture which was sold at Christie's in 1875 for 950 guineas. A _Lady with Pomegranates_, which sold for 765 guineas at the sale of Baron Grant's pictures in 1877, does not appear in our list of exhibited works; nor, it may be, are all the early pictures included therein. But the official catalogues of the Royal Academy May Exhibitions, and of the special Winter Exhibition devoted to the artist's works, have been freely drawn upon for description, and to the list of his life's work, as it appeared in the first edition of this work, many additions have been made. [Illustration: RIZPAH (1893)] [Illustration: THE BRACELET (1894) _By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew and Sons_] [Illustration: FATIDICA (1894) _By permission of Messrs. T Agnew and Sons_] CHAPTER VI HIS METHOD OF PAINTING