About the Book:

Many books have been written on Frederic Leighton, but this is the first to explore his activities as traveller and collector; uncovering the story of how he travelled, where he stayed and how he acquired the artworks that went into the making of what has been called ‘the most beautiful room in London’. This lavishly decorated space, with its golden dome and tiles from Damascus and Iznik, was hailed as an extraordinary creative and artistic triumph from the moment of its first public unveiling in 1881, with one visitor described it as ‘quite the eighth wonder of the world’. It continues to astonish, delight and inspire today.

The Arab Hall details the history of these rooms, and the role played in their creation by such figures as Leighton’s architect George Aitchison; the ceramicist William De Morgan and the designer Walter Crane; by Owen Jones, interior designer for the Great Exhibition of 1851; by Arthur Liberty, founder of the store that still bears his name, and by such fascinating ‘extras’ as the explorer and writer Richard Burton and his wife Isabel, and the garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, one of whose earliest commissions was to make cushions for a seat from which Leighton could admire his tiled walls. This volume also includes a complete translation of the inscriptions in the Arab Hall by Hidaya Abbas, and selections from Leighton’s correspondence with Val Prinsep.

About the Author:

Dr. Melanie Gibson, BA (Oxon) MA, PhD (SOAS, London University) is a well-known authority on Middle Eastern ceramics, writing and lecturing on them worldwide. Having studied Arabic at Oxford University, where her interest in the history of the ceramics of the Islamic world began, she gained her doctorate at SOAS, University of London. From 2013 to 2016 she was head of the Art History department at the New College of the Humanities, London, and from 2006 to 2017, the convenor and course tutor of the Arts of the Islamic World module in the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art at SOAS. A Council Member of the Oriental Ceramic Society, she is also an Executive Trustee of Gingko and Editor of the Gingko Art Series, and a Trustee of the Friends of Leighton House, where she first became fascinated by the history behind the creation of The Arab Hall.