David: "Oh, that I had wings like a Dove! For then would I fly away, and be at rest." Psalm 55:6

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) was a British painter known for the classically inspired, beautifully composed paintings that made him the president of the Royal Academy and the most important painter of the British classical tradition. David: Oh, that I had wings like a Dove from 1865 depicts the biblical King David in the classically inspired, beautifully composed manner that distinguishes Leighton's best work from the more anecdotal painting of his contemporaries. The 1865 date places this in Leighton's most productive period, when he was producing the classically inspired paintings that would make him the most important painter of the British classical tradition.

David is important in the history of British painting because it demonstrates the classically inspired, beautifully composed manner that Leighton brought to biblical subjects as the most important painter of the British classical tradition. Leighton's combination of classical composition with beautiful execution—creating paintings that are simultaneously classical in inspiration and beautiful in finish—represents the British classical tradition at its most accomplished, and the 1865 painting shows this tradition in a biblical subject.

David is Leighton's British classicism: King David rendered in the beautifully composed, classically inspired manner that made him the most important painter of the British classical tradition and president of the Royal Academy. The 1865 painting shows the British classical tradition at its most accomplished—classical inspiration with beautiful execution.