The most famous nap in art once couldn't find a buyer

She has curled up on a marble bench in the afternoon heat, one arm under her head, her knees drawn up. Her dress, a translucent orange silk, pours over her like liquid light. Behind her, the sea shimmers. She's completely, deeply asleep.

Frederic Leighton, Flaming June, 1895. Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico

A masterpiece out of fashion

Frederic Leighton was one of the most celebrated painters in Victorian Britain, the first painter ever made a peer. Flaming June was shown at the Royal Academy in 1895, the year before he died.

Then taste changed. By the middle of the 20th century, Victorian painting was considered sentimental and old-fashioned. In the 1960s, the story goes, Flaming June couldn't find a buyer in London, even at a modest price. In 1963 it was bought for a new museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where it still lives. Today it's one of the most loved paintings of its era.

The branch above her head

Look at the top right corner. There's a sprig of oleander, a beautiful flowering plant that is also poisonous. It may be Leighton's way of hinting at the old link between sleep and death, the two brothers of Greek myth, Hypnos and Thanatos.

Or it may simply be a reminder that rest is precious, and fragile.

Permission to rest

Many of us find it easier to keep going than to stop. A short rest in the middle of the day can feel almost forbidden. Here's a gentle way in.

1. Choose ten minutes in the early afternoon. Set a soft alarm.
2. Lie down, or sit with your head supported. Curl up if you like, as she does.
3. Feel the weight of your body sink into whatever is holding you.
4. Imagine warm light, like her orange silk, flowing slowly over you from your shoulders to your feet.
5. You don't need to sleep. Just stop. When the alarm rings, stretch slowly before getting up.

For more, here are paintings that give you permission to rest and calming paintings to look at before sleep.

Rest, delivered

"(letters) On Art" brings a letter and a postcard every month, and each season the printed issue of "(meditating) On Art". Something to look forward to, and to rest with.

Remember to take as much time as you need, and meet me at the next one.

Love, Evi