Head of a Girl (study)

Head of a Girl (study), painted in oil on canvas in 1880 and held at The Tullie in Carlisle, is one of numerous head studies Leighton produced throughout his career as preparatory work and as independent exercises in the rendering of the human face. By 1880 he was at the summit of his reputation — he had been elected President of the Royal Academy in 1878 — and his figure studies commanded considerable respect as documents of the leading painter's working method. Female head studies of the 1880s are often connected with preparations for specific mythological or literary compositions, where the expressive range of a female face needed to be explored before committing to the finished work. The Tullie, Carlisle's regional museum and art gallery, holds a collection of Victorian painting that includes several works by Leighton.

The 1880 date places this study in Leighton's mature period, when his head study technique was at its most refined. The oil-on-canvas support allows the full range of his flesh-rendering approach: layered glazes building up from a toned ground, careful modelling of the eye sockets and nasal bridge, and the distinctive luminosity he associated with the Venetian masters. The handling is more resolved than early studies while retaining the directness of observational work.