Love bathes a beautiful, young noble woman in its pure white light as she knights a valiant hero in Edmund Blair Leighton’s “The Accolade,” a lushly romantic Arthurian homage to chivalry, gallantry, love and honor. Leighton (1853 – 1922), who studied and exhibited at the Royal Academy Schools was a pre-Raphaelite artist known for his fastidiously crafted, romantic medieval and regency scenes. Leighton’s romanticized historical scenes featured long, richly colored dresses which were often the focal point of his works, painted with exquisite flow and ripple that expressed both motion and rest.

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