LORD FREDERIC LEIGHTON P.R.A., R.W.S. (BRITISH 1830-1896) VIEW OF MAQAM AL-ARBA'IN, MOUNT QASIOUN, DAMASCUS Oil on canvas (21.5cm x 35cm (8.5in x 13.75in)) Note: This open-air oil study was almost certainly painted in 1873, when Leighton was visiting his friend the Orientalist and explorer Richard Burton and his wife in Damascus. It depicts the Maqam al-Arba’in shrine on Mount Qasiyun (the ‘mountain of the forty prophets’), just outside Damascus, which is the believed site of the Biblical murder of Abel at the hands of Cain. The painting is visible in the photograph of Leighton’s studio taken in 1895 (see page 99), which suggests that it was featured in the artist’s posthumous sale of 1896, organised by Christie’s. It was perhaps sold under lot 43, A View in Damascus which was exhibited at Newcastle, or lot 168, A Mountain Scene, with temple and figure, Egypt, given the speculative nature of the titles ascribed at the sale. This work is hoped to feature in the unprecedented exhibition of Leighton’s landscape oil studies at Leighton House Museum in London around 2023-4.