Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

place. His tail gives expressive signals of excitement and rage, and, beyond all misunderstanding, indicates his furious desire to get at his foes. It is but slight comfort to the eager creatures that several of their enemies are already stretched on the floor, or that a living rat, half conscious of impending doom, springs and dances at the wires of a trap near his dead brethren—he is at once confined and fortified in bars of iron. A maltster’s shovel, birch broom, old cart-harness, traces of cart-gear, a bottle, and stray wisps of straw, litter the ground and aid the composition. This composition, as regards the dogs, is worthy of admiration. The three entirely visible dogs, may be described as follows: A big white terrier, in whom one fancies the “Brutus” of former pictures, plunges and “scurries” round the hole where the sunken comrade is at work; he grovels with his nose near the floor, and thrusts his head and chest forward in fierce action; his jaws are set, and his breath goes quickly in and out of his nostrils; his ears are thrown to the front as if to listen for squeaks in the region of the rafters; his eyes protrude and glitter with ravenous desire; his fore feet are spread widely apart, and his hind legs thrust far behind. The chiaro scuro is disposed so that the white body of this dog is the chief object; the light falls powerfully on him, so that his colour aids the effect in the manner of the great masters of chiaro scuro—which is much more than mere “light and shade” in the common sense of that term. Behind,—with a white mark, like a splash of chalk on the back of his head and between his ears, his figure coming above that of the last-named animal,—squats on his haunches a black dog of less demonstrative but equally excitable temperament; his back is arched in a bow, he quivers, and bends his head over the searching terrier with an eager gaze that is very finely expressed. He seems to whimper now and then; but “Brutus,” if it be he, yelps, snaps, barks, and almost howls in his ardour. One sees that if the hole were big enough to admit the bigger dog he would swiftly pull out the pioneer and go in himself, confident in his own resources, in an emergency like this; but with all this valour he has discretion enough to know that the hole would never admit a bulky carcass like his own, and that the sole chance for him consists in the possibility that a rat may appear at some apparently unguarded crevice, or, delirious with fear, rush between the legs of the half-buried hunter. Farthest off is a smaller and younger terrier, who has the air of an amateur or representative of the “lay-element” of rat-catching.[32] This dog sits in a formal, affected manner, his ears are uncropped and hang like lappels[33] quaintly above his head, with no unapt likeness to the decorations on a cap of a fool of the Middle Ages. This is a younger dog, and as eager as his fellows, although less impressionable. The joys of rat combating are as yet untasted by him, or he may be the dilettante he seems. This picture was, like many more by Landseer, engraved by his brother Thomas; it was published in 1823.

In the same year 1821, which produced the “Ratcatchers” for the Royal Academy, the British Institution was enriched with a picture that was engraved for “The Sporting Magazine,” or “Annals of Sporting,” and styled “Pointers To-ho!” The background shows a long level landscape, which is evidently a piece of nature; two pointers stand in the front, at the “foot” of the picture; behind them is a man with a gun: it is a thoroughly “sporting picture,” and as true to life as it is possible to be. A pen and ink sketch for “To-ho!” was sold at the artist’s sale, May 11, 1874, for twenty guineas. Of Landseer’s paintings of this year at the British Institution, Wilkie wrote to Sir George Beaumont, who was interested as the purchaser of a former picture: “Ward, Etty, Stark, Crome, and Landseer are successful, but in no great work.”

The year 1822 was to be marked with a white stone in the annals of a young artist like Edwin Landseer, because he then received the premium of one hundred and fifty pounds from the Directors of the British Institution for “The Larder invaded,” which was contributed to this exhibition of that date. In the same year Mr. George Jones, R.A., late Keeper of the Royal Academy, obtained two hundred pounds in acknowledgment of the merit of his “Battle of Waterloo.” In 1821, John Martin received two hundred pounds on account of his “Belshazzar’s Feast.” As to Martin, there is a story, originally told by himself, to the effect that he contributed a picture to the Royal Academy in 1812, and before sending it, and while washing his brushes in an adjoining room, had the pleasure of hearing the framemaker’s men dispute as to which was the top and which the bottom of the painting. This work is one of Martin’s finer productions, the poetical “Sadak in search of the Waters of Oblivion.”

In 1822, our painter likewise contributed “The watchful Sentinel” to the British Institution. This picture is in the possession of Mr. Chapman, of Manchester, and represents a large black dog watching packages by a road side; a post-chaise is in the distance.

There is an interesting passage in a letter by Wilkie to Sir George Beaumont, dated from No. 24, Lower Phillimore Place, 14th February, 1823; it throws a double light on the writer and our artist. The passage refers to what Sir David called a “niggling touch” in painting, as “very common of late in our pictures,” a defect, if such it was, that was due, no doubt, to over anxiety on the part of the artists, and to the desire “for fulness of subject,” whatever that may be. The writer stated: “I have been warning our friend Collins against this, and was also urging young Landseer to beware of it.” The fact was, Wilkie’s health, then breaking up, precluded that extreme care which distinguished his early and good pictures; moreover, his reputation was made, and he wanted to make money; this could not be done by “niggling,” so he aimed at breadth, as he called it, went abroad for health, came back over head and ears in asphaltum, and never painted a sound picture afterwards. Unfortunately, his better pictures, such as “The Blind Fiddler,” and “The Village Festival,” now in the National Gallery, have been repaired on account of excessive cracking.

Edwin Landseer’s early practice is thus curiously illustrated by Wilkie’s advice. At a later time, no one could caution the former against “niggling,” or enjoin cultivation of “breadth.” Nor was this required since the Highland subjects were taken up after the northern journey with Leslie in 1824; to the first of these we shall presently refer, under the title of “Highlanders returning from Deer-Stalking,” exhibited in 1827, the first contribution of the artist as an Associate of the Royal Academy.

“Neptune,” a picture of 1824, represents the head and shoulders of a huge Newfoundland dog, in full front view, with his mouth open and tongue shown; the head is black, with a white stripe dividing it, and having an oval spot of black on the white of the forehead; it is superbly designed, and treated in honour of the noble animal. It was painted for Mr. Ellis Gosling, and has been admirably engraved by the artist’s brother.

The best known of Edwin Landseer’s early pictures is “The Cat’s Paw,” which was exhibited at the British Institution in 1824, and now hangs in the dining-room at Cassiobury, the seat of the Earl of Essex. This work, which is painted on a panel, was bought of the artist for one hundred pounds, and sold a few days afterwards to the late Earl of Essex, a great patron of the arts, for one hundred and twenty pounds, and would probably be worth, if now sold, about three thousand pounds.

This was Sir Edwin’s estimate, made some years since, when, soon after the fever caused by Mr. Bicknell’s remarkably well-managed sale of pictures, the present Earl of Essex met the painter, and asked what he thought “The Cat’s Paw” would produce if it were sold. “About three thousand pounds,” was the answer. At the sale, which occurred in 1863, appeared illustrations of the increase in the value of Landseer’s pictures; thus “The Prize Calf,” which is by no means one of his best works, and for which he four years earlier received four hundred and twenty pounds, was resold for one thousand eight hundred and ninety pounds; “The Twa Dogs,” purchased for three hundred pounds, was sold for two thousand four hundred and fifteen pounds; “The Highland Shepherd,” exhibited in 1850, and bought for three hundred and fifty pounds, brought back again two thousand three hundred and forty-one pounds, ten shillings. As “The Cat’s Paw” now appears, it is hot and dark in tone, if compared with some silvery and more solid productions. It scarcely needs a description, yet we may point out how admirably the incident is told. The scene is a laundry, or ironing-room, probably in some great house, to which a monkey of most crafty and resolute disposition has access. The place is too neat and well-maintained to be part of a poor man’s house. The “ironing-woman” has left her work, the stove is in full combustion, and the hand of some one who appreciated the good things of life has deposited on its level top, together with a flat iron, half-a-dozen ripe sound chestnuts. To the aromatic, appetizing odour of the fruit was probably due the entrance of the monkey, a muscular, healthy beast, who came, dragging his chain, and making his bell rattle. He smelt the fruit and coveted them; tried to steal them off the cooking-place with his own long, lean digits, and burnt his fingers. He looked about for a more effective means and—heedless of the motherhood of a fine cat who, with her kittens, was ensconced in a clothes-basket, where she blandly enjoyed the coverings and the heat—pounced upon Puss, entangled as she was in the wrappings of her ease. Puss resisted at first with offended dignity and wrath at being thus treated before the faces of her offspring. She resisted as a cat only can, with lithe and strenuous limbs; the muscular, light, and vigorous frame of the creature quivered with the stress of her energy; she twisted, doubled her body, buckled herself, so to say, in convulsions of passion and fear, but still, surely, without a notion of the object of her captor. Yet he had by far the best of the struggle, for her tiger-like claws were enveloped in the covering which erst served her so comfortably; and, kicking, struggling, squalling, and squealing as strength departed from her, she flounced about the room, upset the coal-scuttle on the floor, and hurled her mistress’s favourite flower-pot in hideous confusion on the “ironing-blanket.” It was to no purpose, for the quadruped with muffled claws was no match for her four-handed foe. He dragged her towards the stove, and dreadful notions of a fate in its fiery bowels must have arisen in her heart, as nearer and still more near the master of the situation brought his victim. Stern, resolute, with no more mercy than the cat had when some unhappy mouse felt her claws—claws now to be deftly, yet painfully employed, Pug grasped her in three of his powerful hands, and, as reckless of struggles as of yells, squeals, and squalls, with the fourth stretched out her soft, sensitive, velvety fore-paw—the very mouse-slayer itself—to the burning stove and its spoils. What cared he for the bowed backs or the spiteful mewlings of her miserable offspring, little cats as they were? He made their mother a true “Cat’s Paw.”

This picture was engraved by C. G. Lewis. Shortly after its exhibition Sir Walter Scott came to London, and took the young painter to Abbotsford on his return, “where,” said