Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

Another artist of great note was beginning to make a mark which is likely to grow deeper as the world grows older, for in the man were many fine powers of art and criticism. He was closely associated with our subject. This was Leslie, who arrived in England in 1811, and was at this time, 1815, residing next door to Flaxman, i.e., at No. 8, Buckingham Place, or Street, Fitzroy Square. In 1816 Leslie, eight years Landseer’s senior, made a bold attempt with a congenial theme from English poetical history, a class of subject which he affected warmly, being “The Death of Rutland,” from “The Third Part of Henry VI.,” Act i. Scene 3, where Clifford murders the youth. Edwin Landseer sat for the young victim, kneeling, with a rope round his wrists, being then “a curly-headed youngster, dividing his time between Polito’s wild beasts at Exeter Change and the Royal Academy Schools.”[21] The picture, after appearing at the Academy in 1816 (No. 518), was sent to America, and purchased by the Academy of Philadelphia, where it probably still is. It contains a very early portrait of our painter. But this was not the first likeness of Landseer exhibited; for “Master J. Hayter,” afterwards a portrait-painter of considerable note and some cleverness, although then but a youngster, painted “Master E. Landseer” as “The Cricketer,” and sent the work to the Royal Academy in 1815 (No. 450). “Master J. Hayter” died, an old man, not many years ago.[22]

That an artist so eminent as Landseer should have first presented himself to the public, or by his father have been so presented, in the ranks of the honorary exhibitors, is curious. The suffix “H.” to the name, and his being included with the class in question, leaves no doubt on the subject. It is understood that pictures by exhibitors of this class are not for sale, and the privilege of thus showing works is, or was, considered a compliment to persons of distinction. Thus we find among the honorary exhibitors of 1815, Sir George Beaumont; the

The Eagle and Dead Stag.

Rev. W. Holwell Carr, a benefactor to the National Gallery; J. Britton, the antiquary; and the Hon. Mary J. Eden. That a picture by a boy of twelve should be so exhibited is among the curiosities of Academy displays. Though in itself more meritorious, it is not less remarkable, than the fact that George Morland, in 1778, sent to the Academy a picture drawn with a poker, or that similar gatherings formerly comprised flower-pieces in human hair, and the like “works of art.”

The year 1816 witnessed the second appearance of our painter, and with a picture the title of which affirms his previous practice. This happened at “the Great Room in Spring Gardens,” then, and long before, a frequent place of exhibition, not unlike the present Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, that could be hired for all sorts of shows, and afforded many curious illustrations of the uses to which such a gallery could be put. In the year in question this “Great Room” was in the occupancy of the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours—that is, the same association which now flourishes as the Society of Painters in Water Colours, its original title, which had for a time given way to the first-named designation, in consequence of a difficulty about dividing profits among the members, a considerable number of whom seceded, leaving those who remained unable to cover the walls with pictures. In this strait the remaining members invited a certain number of oil painters to contribute to the exhibition, and called the persons who consented to do so Associate-Exhibitors. The seceders comprised J. J. Chalon, De Wint, Gilpin, Hills, Reinagle, and Pugin the elder. David Cox had joined the Society shortly before, and “came to the rescue with a host of pictures;” but these did not suffice, and the expedient of inviting Associate-Exhibitors was employed to increase the popularity of the exhibitions.

It is noteworthy that among these “outsiders” who were taken in as stop-gaps was William Henry Hunt, one of the most artistic of English painters; he made his début to the Society, of which he became one of the most distinguished members, in 1814, with two landscapes in oil. Hunt, like Landseer, had previously exhibited in the Royal Academy; he did so in 1807, when Sir Edwin was five years of age. The Society continued to use, until 1824, its style of the times of difficulty, and thereafter reverted to its former title and limits. It is worthy of note that this interval of disturbance had much to do with the bringing out of painters so diverse in their modes of thought as Hunt and Landseer. Haydon also found a field for the exhibition of his power in the gallery of the divided Society. In 1814 the last-named artist sent there “The Judgment of Solomon,” a picture which is admitted to be the best he painted, and to it the attention of Landseer’s biographer is directed, as having probably been purchased, as it was certainly long retained, by his pupil in memory of Haydon. The work passed from Sir Edwin’s possession to that of Lord Ashburton.

The connection between the Landseers and Haydon is close. Haydon was, at least in some degree, Edwin Landseer’s third teacher, if we put Nature before his father. In his peculiar way, which has to be taken into account ere we can appreciate the true sense of the following passage, Haydon describes the first entry of John Landseer’s sons to his charge:—