Leighton House

This guide to Leighton House in London opens with the gap between the public and private sides of Frederic Leighton, the most celebrated British artist of his age and President of the Royal Academy for eighteen years, whose bedroom upstairs was a single narrow bed. It follows his years hunting across Syria, Egypt, and Turkey for the Islamic tiles that fill the Arab Hall below, shipped from Beirut and hauled by stagecoach to the coast. You'll hear what he said he built the hall for, and what it cost him compared to the rest of the house. Stand beneath the golden dome and look up before you move on.