Sir Edwin Landseer

by Frederic George Stephens

“The Sportsman’s Annual,” with illustrations by Edwin Landseer, A. Cooper, and C. Hancock, thirteen lithographs of dogs, with a descriptive text.

In 1837 came “The Highland Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,” which is far more touching than direct appeals to the imagination: a lonely shepherd has finished a long life, and the picture represents his coffin covered by his maud for a pall, with his dog, the trusty companion of his later years, and chief mourner, the single and faithful guardian of the dead. The expression and attitude of the friendless animal suggest almost human woe; his limbs seem relaxed and without life, as, pressing close to the coffin and resting his head on it, he broods over his loss. The pious life of the shepherd is hinted by a Bible on a stool in front, his age and infirmities by the spectacles beside the book, never more to be used.[39]

“The Shepherd’s Grave,” painted in 1837—which appeared with the Art Treasures at Manchester, in 1857—was a picture of similar inspiration. A sheep dog lingers by his master’s grave, his head declines over the fresh heap of earth, with its bindings of withy. The moon is rising on the horizon, yet the dog remains. To show how recent has been the master’s decease, the white stone displays an incomplete inscription; the carver will return in the morning, his tools lie ready, but the dog will remain all night, and until there is no more day for him. The picture belongs to Mr. W. Wells, M.P.

“The Portrait of the Marquis of Stafford, and the Lady Evelyn Gower,” placed before the public in 1838, is a pretty picture of a girl with a fawn, round the neck of which she has placed a garland; a spaniel sits “begging” before her; a boy in a short dress, with bare shoulders and legs, is seated on the grass in front and looks up, while a noble deer-hound lolls against a tree; it is probably Landseer’s best portrait-picture. It was beautifully engraved by Samuel Cousins.

“The Life’s in the old Dog yet,” exhibited in 1838, and now the property of Mr. John Naylor, is poetical and pathetic. An old deer-hound, champion of many a hunting, was over-eager in pursuit of the deer which lies shattered at the foot of a cliff. The deer fell in a desperate leap, the dog, being close on his haunches, overran himself and fell. When the hunters came the difficulty was to recover the old dog and bring up the deer. An ancient sportsman was let down by a rope, and, in the words which give a title to the picture, hails the folks above, while he sustains the head of the dog.

When this picture was comprised in the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester, in 1857, it hung close to Mr. J. R. Herbert’s, “Lear disinheriting Cordelia,” a subject the artist had treated with sufficient demonstrativeness in the action and expression of the king. A humorous mistake was made by a person who was attracted by the effective design of Landseer’s brother Academician. In the broadest “Yorkshire” he demanded of a companion, “What’s 329?” The latter blundered, and read from the catalogue the title of No. 331, “There is life in the old Dog yet.” “So there is, to be sure!” ejaculated the inquirer, in happy ignorance.

The year 1838 was remarkable in the annals of Landseer, for in the Exhibition of that year was one of the finest of his works, “A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society”—the large Newfoundland dog, with a black head and a white muzzle, reclining on the last stone of a quay, while the summer ripples slowly rise at the sea-wall, where the mooring-ring catches the lapsing wavelet as it runs along the stone. The likeness of the dog is a wonderful representation; this may be truly said, notwithstanding all that can be averred in respect to the chic and dexterity, of the painter. The trick of an earnest expression, the semi-human pathos of the dog’s eyes, is not less effective than truthful. He lies in the broad sunlight, and the shadow of his enormous head is cast sideways on his flank as white as snow. He looks seaward with a watchful eye, and his quickness of attention is hinted at by the gentle lifting of his ears. The painting of the hide, here rigid and there soft, here shining with reflected light, there like down; the masses of the hair, as the dog’s habitual motions caused them to grow; the foreshortening of his paws as they hang over the edge of the quay; and the fine sense of chiaroscuro displayed in the whole, induce us to rank it with the painter’s masterpieces. Superbly engraved by Mr. T. Landseer, it now belongs to Mr. Newman Smith.

“Dignity and Impudence” was at the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester, and first shown at the British Institution in 1839, with the title “Dogs.” The noble bloodhound of the Duke of Grafton’s breed who calmly regards an approaching person, has received on terms of intimacy a snappish little Scotch terrier, whose irritability is not soothed by grand companionship. The big dog’s name was “Grafton,” a name of his family; that of the little one is unknown to fame. The picture was bequeathed by Mr. Jacob Bell to the National Gallery. It was engraved admirably by Mr. T. Landseer, and, again, severally, by Mr. Zobel and Mr. Davey.

In the year 1839 appeared “Van Amburgh and his Animals,” a different work from that which belongs to the Duke of Wellington and was at the Academy in 1847. The latter is the less acceptable of the two; both have merits, but in the eyes of critics neither, nor any of Landseer’s later paintings of lions, approach those works of his youth we have named, “A prowling Lion,” and “A Lion enjoying his Repast.” The artist had, during a considerable portion of his life, continued his studies from lions, and whenever Mr. Mitchell, Secretary of the Zoological Society, had a dead lion on his hands, the refusal of the corpse was offered to Landseer. Until the painter was consulted, there was small chance of a zoologist dissecting “a king of the beasts.” There is a story, told originally by Charles Dickens, or at least so often fathered on that writer that it may belong to him. It is the counterpart of the tale of Sydney Smith, on “Is thy servant a dog?” Some of our artist’s ways were strange to visitors, and stories float about them which are untrue, but there is strong probability in that which tells how one evening, while a few friends were assembled at the house in St. John’s Wood, the door of the room was suddenly opened by a man-servant, who said,—with sang-froid which indicated volumes as to the nature of a speaker to whom nothing seemed unreal,—“Did you order a lion, sir?” If such beasts had arrived daily at the door, the question could not have been uttered with more imperturbability. The guests looked to their host for an answer. It is said that some were afraid, or pretended to fear, that a living lion was loitering at the gate, waiting Sir Edwin’s word to enter. No one could be quite sure; but none present expected to be given to the lion. The explanation that calmed all real or pretended fears was soon obtained; Landseer was no more prepared than his company for the question of the henchman. A lion had died suddenly at the Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park—a lion well known to Sir Edwin. It was evening when this occurred, and the Secretary had the dead beast put in a cart, and driven to No. 1, St. John’s Wood Road, where the party was assembled, as a present acceptable to the host. As lions do not die daily in this country, the gift was worthy of the Society and the receiver. It was from this model that the picture “Nero” was painted; and it is said that the lion of that name left his skin to the British Museum; at any rate it is certain that, being duly stuffed with straw, his hide received popular admiration in a glass case in one of the upper galleries of Bloomsbury.