ABSTRACT
The aesthetic climate nourished his artistic leanings, and he began to blossom as a virtual impresario of the decorative arts. The nouveaux riches thrown up by the Industrial Revolution, although considered brash with their brass, had to be tolerated by practising artists since they were the new patrons of the arts. Francis R. Leyland of Liverpool, a self-made ship-owner, set out to be a modem Medici. The rooms of Leyland's house were hung with paintings by Rossetti, Millais, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, Watts, Legros. Whistler's ‘Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine’ was the sole picture in the diningroom, Whistler protested that its effect was ruined by the walls being covered with Spanish leather painted with red flowers, the work of the designer Thomas Jeckyll. Bride was produced at the Opéra Comique in London, performance April 23, 1881. Durward Lely played Bunthorne, the fleshly poet in rivalry with the idyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor for the love of the village milk-maid, Patience.
