![]() ![]() An English animal painter of mainly horses, dogs, stags and lions, Landseer’s works became commonplace in the homes of Victorian audiences, and his Lion sculptures sit proudly in Trafalgar Square to this very day. Richard Ormond, Sir Edwin Landseer, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 1982, p.82.ĭoes this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you. When one thinks of Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, RA, many accomplishments come to mind. Edwin’s father was an engraver and he encouraged his son to take up art and excel at it. Landseer was the youngest among seven siblings. His paintings were different than the rest during the Victorian Age because the paintings were seen to have moral dimensions. Two of these were destroyed in the flood of 1928, but five are still in the Tate collection ( A00702, A00703, N00412, N00409 and N00415).įurther reading: Robin Hamlyn, Robert Vernon's Gift - British Art for the Nation 1847, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1993, p.51, no.40, reproduced p.51. Edwin Henry Landseer was known as an animal painter. Vernon went on to add several more works by Landseer to his collection, seven of which he bequeathed to the National Gallery in 1847. The picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1830 and was probably the first Landseer acquired by Robert Vernon, who had an important collection of 19 th Century British art. Highland Music 1829, exhibited 1830 Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3. Dogs figure largely in the novels of Sir Walter Scott, and the subject of this picture may have been suggested by Landseer's concurrent commission to illustrate the Waverley novels, which appeared from 1829 onwards. By the time he was ready to paint ‘Old Betty’ the foal had outgrown its mother. However, Landseer repeatedly put off the commission. About half consist of commissioned, life-size dog ' portraits', the rest are independent subjects, smaller in scale and usually with a narrative content. Bell originally wanted Landseer to depict the mare with her foal. ![]() Landseer's dog paintings of the 1830s are among his most popular works. ![]() ![]() Whereas in Highland Music, he compares the wailing of the bagpipes with the dogs' howling, in the later painting he contrasts a mother feeding her baby with a terrier suckling her puppies. Landseer juxtaposes human and canine behaviour in a similar way in another of his Scottish interiors, A Highland Breakfast ( c.1834, Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The reviewer for the Court Journal thought the title of Highland Music was 'facetious' and described the work as 'half-a-dozen dogs howling to the sound of their master's bagpipes - as if they had never heard it before, and as if the principal performers in such a concert would be likely to continue it under such accompaniments' ( Court Journal, 6 February 1830). The influence of Dutch art is clear in the minute detail and the effect of light, especially on the domestic utensils, but the touch of humour created by the dogs is unique to Landseer. Typical of the series, it is a highly finished interior scene, focusing on the humble pleasures of everyday life in the Highlands. He painted this picture at his Highland retreat in Glen Feshie, near Braemar, where the Duchess of Bedford had built a series of wooden and turf huts. The two biggest collections of his work are in the Royal Collection and here in the Victoria and Albert Museum.Highland Music is one of a group of Scottish genre subjects Landseer produced during the late 1820s and early 1830s. Queen Victoria collected his paintings, as did John Sheepshanks. Animals remained the main subjects of his art. From an early age he was a frequent visitor to the menagerie in Exeter Change in the Strand, London, where he drew lions, monkeys and other animals. This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837 and proved a great success, particularly as an engraving after this picture was published and sold widely in the following year.Įdwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) was a child prodigy, exhibiting some drawings at the Royal Academy when he was only 13. Its mixture of pathos and realism appealed to all sections of society, and the critic Ruskin praised the fine technique and the subtle choice of details. Landseer learned drawing from his father, an engraver and writer, and also studied at the Royal Academy. 1, 1873, London), British painter and sculptor best known for his paintings of animals. Landseer's choice of subject illustrates the Victorian obsession with the trappings of death, combined here with his speciality, the accurate and almost anthropomorphic representation of dogs and other animals. Sir Edwin Landseer, in full Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, (born March 7, 1802, London, Eng.died Oct. Chauncy Hare Townshend, as well as with the Victorian public in general. Oil paintings with sentimental scenes of animals became popular with collectors such as John Sheepshanks and the Rev. ![]()
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