The stories behind the paintings

At first glance it is only a goodbye. A knight in chain mail turns in the saddle; a woman on the stone steps leans toward him with both hands busy at his arm. Between them is a strip of red cloth - not armour, not a banner, just a sash. In Edmund Blair Leighton's God Speed (1900), that small gesture is the whole drama. The Middle Ages on the canvas are costume. The feeling is modern: someone you love is leaving, and all you can give them is a token and a prayer. Edmund Blair Leighton, God Speed , 1900. Oil on canvas. Private collection. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Quick facts Artist: Edmund Blair Leighton (1852-1922) Date: 1900 Medium: Oil on canvas Collection: Private collection Notable fact: Shown at the Royal Academy in 1900; Leighton scraped out a week's work and remade a passage in two hours just before the painting left the studio for exhibition A Victorian Dream of Chivalry Leighton belonged to a late-Victorian taste for medieval romance: kni...