The Accolade
Edmund Leighton (1901)
Edmund Leighton’s The Accolade (1901) crystallizes the rite of knighthood as a moral initiation, staging duty conferred by <strong>grace</strong> rather than force. A lady in radiant white touches her sword to the shoulder of a kneeling knight in chain mail and scarlet surcoat, before a crimson tapestry and carved throne, while shadowed witnesses affirm the solemnity of the moment <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[2]</sup>.
