Frederic, Lord Leighton Flaming June. Photo Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico

The Museo de Arte de Ponce holds the most important and, perhaps, the most unexpected collection of Victorian art outside the UK. Their Pre-Raphaelite collection contains icons of British painting, such as Frederic, Lord Leighton’s Flaming June and Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones’s masterpiece, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon. It also includes works by Dante Gabriel Rosetti and John Everett Millais among others. Featuring biblical scenes, subjects drawn from Shakespeare, or tableaux based on written works by Tennyson and Keats, Pre-Raphaelite paintings were characterized by vibrant colors and unconventional compositions. These paintings revolutionized the Victorian art scene during the latter half of the 19th century and today represent the ideal of classicized female beauty. Vanity Fair and Country Life contributor Patrick Monahan will tell the extraordinary story of how such important works of Victorian art crossed the Atlantic to Puerto Rico. He will highlight the stories behind some of these treasures and will also show how some of these images have been transformed into ubiquitous icons—reproduced on T-shirts, coffee mugs, phone covers, jigsaw puzzles, and more.

Patrick Monahan is a writer and independent art advisor, specializing in British paintings, drawings, and sculpture from the eighteenth century to the present. A native New Yorker, he is consulted by collectors and museums on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico. His written work appears in Country Life and Vanity Fair, as well as in the exhibition catalogue “Flaming June: the making of an icon,” Leighton House, London, 2016. He holds an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge as well as a BA from the University of Chicago, both in art history. He lives and works in New York City, with regular visits to London.

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