Flaming June, Leighton House Museum
Reunited with the artist's final works, a painting rarely seen but endlessly reproduced
The chances are, you’ve only ever seen Flaming June in reproduction: since 1963 it has resided in the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, an out-of-the-way location that reflects the universal disdain for Victorian art in the post-war period. When the painting disappeared and then resurfaced in a house on Battersea Rise it was rejected by every British museum imaginable, eventually being bought by the enterprising curator Luis A Ferré, to form part of what is now recognised as a world-class collection of Victorian art.