God Speed

Leighton painted this in 1900, and it is worth remembering that no knights were riding off to war in the Britain of 1900. This is the Victorian dream of the Middle Ages, painted with careful, photographic finish for an audience that loved chivalry as a story. A young woman leans from a stone gateway to tie a red sash around the arm of a departing knight in armour. That red is the detail to catch. In the old custom of the favour, a lady gave her champion a ribbon or scarf to carry into danger, and red dye was the most expensive of all, so the colour itself signals how much she is giving him. Behind them soldiers are already filing out through the gate. Leighton went on to paint several more scenes of knightly farewell in the years that followed.