3-021-238 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. G. D. Leslie, A.R.A., 1868. 'We believe that the young artist is the first painter who has been made an Associate whose father, also a painter, was a member of the Royal Academy...From his father he derived, of course, a great deal of instruction in art; and the pure and tender feeling as well as the simplicity of method which distinguish so many works of the father seem to be reflected in the productions of the son...Like his father (who laughed at the notion of the necessity of the English artist studying at Rome), Mr. Leslie has, we understand, never been abroad, with the exception of spending one summer in Denmark. He usually passes the summer-time on the banks of the Thames, painting out of doors as much as possible. This fact affords some clue to the localities and sources whence Mr. Leslie derives the materials for those backgrounds of quaint, primly-trimmed, old-fashioned English gardens which form such appropriate accessories to many of those subjects of female character and sentiment by which, perhaps, the artist is best known. These "conversation pieces"...afford charming glimpses into the domestic life of the last century, and constitute a specialty which the painter has made entirely his own'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.