Publisher's Synopsis
Once, a 14 year-old Andrew Lloyd Webber happened to chance upon the painting of the ‘Flaming June’.
He was a budding collector and his hobby was financed by his grandmother, who had just shelled out £50 for three huge, beautifully-illustrated volumes of Dugdale's History of Ancient Abbies and Monasteries.
The boy described in detail the painting he fell in love with, but his grandmother was adamant: 'I will not have Victorian junk in my flat'.
This is the story of Ada Pullan (Dorothy Dene); Victorian actress, nude model and muse, rumoured to be one of the subjects of Leighton's ‘Flaming June’, on her life, success and celebrity, and the story of the painting itself.
Lloyd Webber’s grandma was wrong. The current value of the painting is £14 million!
