A fantasia in ceramic, Leighton House in London testifies to the decorative sense of its namesake builder, artist Frederic Leighton, and the craftsmanship of William De Morgan.
West of Kensington Gardens, in the Holland Park neighborhood of London, sits a small enclave of arts and crafts houses, including William Burges’s Tower House, Halsey Ricardo’s Debenham House, and Leighton House, the home and studio of Victorian artist and collector of Arab tiles Frederic, Lord Leighton.
I first became fascinated with this neighborhood when I visited Leighton House in the early 1990s. I’ve also had the good fortune to visit the privately owned Debenham House, which first intrigued me when I saw it in the movie Secret Ceremony starring Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow. I became obsessed with William De Morgan’s mythical beasts tiles in many of its rooms.
As the centenary of Leighton House becoming a public museum approaches, I sat down with senior curator Daniel Robbins to ask him everything I ever wanted to know about the house and Holland Park.
—Anna Sui
Anna Sui: The tiles in Leighton House are so memorable! They started my obsession: the beautiful Islamic tiles in the Arab Hall and throughout the house, the glass mosaic tiles in the golden dome, and the intense peacock blue tiles in the Narcissus Hall that links the Arab Hall to the main part of the house. When I was decorating my apartment, I did the bathroom and fireplace with reproductions of William De Morgan tiles made by Kenneth Clark Ceramics, which I learned about from Hilary Young, the tile curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Did Frederic Leighton start the tile trend in Holland Park? Was this the start of the arts and crafts movement flourishing in that part of London?
Daniel Robins: It all started a small distance from Leighton House with a house called Little Holland. In the early 1850s Sara and Thoby Prinsep took on the lease for Little Holland. A lot of people came to stay with them. Their artist friend George Frederic Watts came for a visit and ended up staying for years; he painted extraordinary murals in the Prinseps’ house that were removed when it was demolished. Two sections of those murals ended up at Leighton House. When Edward Burne-Jones was unwell, he came to stay and recuperate. In short, it became a place where artists gathered. It had a very bohemian atmosphere. As artists and writers continued to come to the area, a creative neighborhood developed. At its peak, there were eleven purpose-built studio-houses in the vicinity of Leighton House.
AS: Does that include William Holman Hunt’s home?
DR: Yes, but his house was different in that it was a preexisting structure. He built a studio in the back garden and was the only Pre-Raphaelite artist to settle in the immediate area. The rest of the neighborhood was occupied by Royal Academy artists.
AS: Did Leighton build his house specifically to display his art and collection of tiles?
DR: When Leighton was eleven years old his family settled on the Continent. He studied painting in Germany and then lived in Rome and Paris before returning to England. The idea of building a studio-house had been with him a long time before he began building the house in the 1860s, working in collaboration with architect George Aitchison, whom he’d met in Rome in the 1850s—but who had never designed a house before.
The Arab Hall, where most of Leighton’s tiles are on display, was built between about 1881 and 1882. Its construction actually cost quite a lot more than the original house. But it didn’t give him any extra living space—his remained a one-bedroom house. For Leighton, the Arab Hall was all about creating a space that was distinctive. The building caused public interest in the house to increase tremendously.
AS: Did he bring European and Arab artisans over to England to do the work?
DR: Part of Frederic Leighton’s motivation for traveling was his quest for tiles. There are about a thousand tiles in the house in total. He was intent on collecting enough tiles to complete elaborate paneled walls for his impressive “oriental room,” as he called the Arab Hall. But, surprisingly, he found all the people to build the room in London—a rapidly expanding city at the time. For example, the Arab Hall’s gold glass mosaic frieze, designed by Walter Crane, came from Salviati and Company in Venice, but was installed by a London builder.
There is still the chicken-and-egg question of whether the Arab Hall was built for the tiles or if the tiles were fit into the space. But we do know that wherever Leighton found gaps between tiles, his friend William De Morgan made tiles to fill in the spaces. He made extremely convincing in-fills.
AS: How did Leighton make the room so authentic? I’ve visited some qa’as, or entry rooms with a fountain, in Egypt and Damascus, and it has the same calm atmosphere.
DR: When you see the light streaming through the windows of the Arab Hall, it’s hard to think you’re in Holland Park. It doesn’t feel fake. We recently had a group of Turkish women visit, following the earthquakes in Turkey, and they were so moved by the space. It was so real for them.
We’ve also been making a series of recordings in the space, with an imam and with artists from the region talking about what the Arab Hall means to them. What is really striking is how much they identify with the space. It has so much contemporary relevance.
AS: In its day, did Leighton House and its Arab Hall create a fashion for simulating Middle Eastern design?
DR: There were collectors in London who were definitely influenced by Leighton. Debenham House itself is a direct response. There are many interconnections between Debenham House and Leighton House. The interiors of Debenham House feature extensive tiling by William De Morgan, a key collaborator in the creation of Leighton’s Arab Hall. The feel of the interiors of Debenham House, combining turquoise De Morgan tiles with rich gold mosaics and marbles, clearly took significant inspiration from the interiors Leighton had created.
AS: When De Morgan’s tile firm closed, didn’t Halsey Ricardo inherit the tiles and use as many as he could in Debenham House?
DR: That’s absolutely correct.
AS: Debenham House is not open to the public, is it?
DR: No, a lot of these arts and crafts studio-houses are private homes now, and some have been significantly altered. That is one of the reasons Leighton House is so unique.
AS: Yes, every time I am in London I visit Leighton House. I’ve seen so many great exhibitions there. I love how immersive it is for viewing art. One of my favorites was the Lawrence Alma-Tadema exhibition in 2017 when his paintings were shown throughout the house.
DR: We try not to make it too museum-like.
AS: Do you have more exhibitions planned for the near future?
DR: We’ve got a very exciting exhibition through April of Leighton’s landscape drawings from his travels, showcasing everywhere he went. It’s been a fascinating project. There are several scenes of Damascus and many along the Nile, but he’s so interesting: he always avoids the obvious views. There’s not a pyramid in sight in any of his drawings of Egypt.
We are celebrating one hundred years of Leighton House as a public museum in 2026. One exhibition to mark this will document the conservation of the house in photographs. It’s been a very long road to bring it back to how it was. For example, you’ll see photographs taken right after the Second World War that show they had fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling!
Another project will be about the Arab Hall. One of the trustees of our Friends, Melanie Gibson, is writing a book about it, tracing how Leighton acquired all the tiles. We’re also commissioning a film, part of which will include contemporary voices talking about the significance of the space, and we’ll commission contemporary artists to create responses to the Arab Hall within it.
Along with all that, we’re working with a collector who has amassed a series of images of artists in their studios and we’re planning a show on how artists’ studios have been arranged and furnished over time.
AS: That’s so exciting. I can’t wait.
