- LANDSEER, Sir Edwin
(1802-73)
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Painter
- Sir Edwin Landseer, the celebrated painter of sentimental animal
subjects, was an infant prodigy who first exhibited at the RA at the age of
twelve. He was the son of an engraver and his eldest brother devoted his life
to making engravings of his pictures, examples of which were once to be founds
in practically every public house in England. At the beginning of his career he
was an excellent painter of animals who owned Stubbs's drawings for the
Anatomy of the Horse, but he very soon discovered that by giving animals, and
especially dogs, quasi-human expressions he was able to touch the hearts of a
large public. He was entranced by his first visit to Scotland in 1824 and
very soon began to move in the highest society, particularly on deer-stalking
expeditions; he was Queen Victoria's favourite painter and the lifelong friend
of the Duchess of Bedford. Landseer was elected ARA at the earliest possible
age (twenty-four), and RA in 1831; he refused the Presidency in 1865, as he
had already refused a knighthood in 1842 (though he accepted in 1850). His
best-known work is the group oflions at the foot of the Nelson monument in
Trafalgar Square, London, 1857 It has been observed that many of his
pictures of animals have an unpleasant substratum of cruelty; such as The
Cat's Paw, exhibited in 1824 and very popular in engravings, which shows a monkey using a cat's paws to fish roast chestnuts out of a fire. In 1869 his mind
gave way and he died four years later hopelessly insane.
There are many pictures
in the Royal Coll. and others in Birmingham, Liverpool, London (Tate, NPG,
RA, V&A, Kenwood) and Yale (CBA). The Stag at Bay, perhaps the best
known of his numerous Highland subjects, is now in a private collection in
Dublin.
- Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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