In a letter to his father dated 1864 Leighton announced the completion of the fresco, "The Wise and Foolish Virgins." The design of the whole and the lines of the draperies in each figure are all admirable, and the work is one which proves Leighton's powers of achieving rapidly, and under great difficulties, a complete work and one in which his great sense of beauty is very salient. There is also sufficient dramatic feeling in the gestures and expressions of the faces. Perhaps the most interesting (because the most spontaneous) attitude in the figures of the wise virgins is that which is kneeling, profile-wise, under the figure of the angel, who is indicating to her the presence of her Saviour. She seems dazed with awe and rapture. Her arm is caught up with a sudden unstudied angularity of movement which, though not so beautiful intrinsically as are most of those in Leighton's work, is very expressive, and produces a happy effect amid the more obviously arranged lines in the rest of the design. Among the many drawings preserved in the Leighton House Collection made for this fresco there is a slight but very sensitive sketch for this figure, also a finished pencil drawing for the head of Christ. The model who sat for this head was the Italian whom Leighton painted in "Golden Hours," and whom Watts used for the picture he (many years after its execution) entitled "A Prodigal." The type of this model may be felt by some to have been an unfortunate one to choose for the central imposing figure in the design of the fresco. It is, perhaps, weak--too good-looking in a commonplace style for such a subject. Ruskin, on seeing the photograph of this work, wrote to Leighton (a postscript to a letter): "I was much struck--seriously--by the photograph from your fresco; it is wonderfully fine in action." Leighton wrote to Steinle on receipt of his criticisms on the Lyndhurst fresco:-- _Translation._] _3rd December._ MY DEAR FRIEND,--Just now returned from a long journey (to Constantinople and Athens), I find two very welcome letters from you, by which I see with great pleasure that your old pupil may still reckon upon your invaluable friendship and sympathy, and I see it all the more certainly because you enclose a kind but pertinent criticism of the photographs I sent you.[31] I agree entirely, and can only pretend in my defence that it was difficult, with the long space (all having to be filled) and the altar standing in the middle of it, not to fall into rather a panic. That, after all, is but a lame excuse, and I hope that you will always rap me over the knuckles with the same friendly sincerity.