[14] At South Kensington is a very interesting collection of early drawings and etchings, of various dates, by Edwin Landseer. These were, for the most part, presented to the nation with the Sheepshanks Gift of Pictures and Drawings. Some of them, we believe, came with the Vernon Gift, and many were undoubtedly for a considerable time in the possession of Mr. Vernon before they passed into the hands of Mr. Sheepshanks. In the Exhibition of Landseer’s works, held at the Royal Academy in 1874, were several sketches executed when he was ten years old. See No. 133, likewise Nos. 136, 139.
[15] It ought to be noted here that the Queen has a considerable number of drawings by Sir E. Landseer, which, with examples from other collections, have been carefully described by Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse, in a richly illustrated work called “The Studies of Sir E. Landseer,” n. d.
[16] Mr. Algernon Graves’s excellent catalogue of the works of Sir E. Landseer enumerates, under “Etchings,” p. 40, a class of examples of this nature, the earliest instance of which is dated 1809, and appears to be that named at the beginning of the next paragraph of our text as “Heads of a Lion and Tiger.”
[17] The author is indebted to Sir Edward Cust for a correction of statements on this head, made in a former edition of this work. As Sir Edward’s letter is interesting on its own account, the reader will accept it entire:—
“Leasowe Castle, near Birkenhead, Oct. 21, 1874.
“Sir,—I am induced to believe that you will thank me for pointing out to you some errors in your ‘Memoirs of Sir E. Landseer’ in a matter in which I am naturally well conversant.
“At page 32 you speak of ‘the etching of Mr. Thomas Landseer of an Alpine mastiff of the great St. Bernard breed’ that had been ‘imported to this country by a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood of Liverpool,’ and by a note to this you refer to the Exhibition at Spring Gardens in 1817 of ‘Brutus,’ the property of W. H. Simpson, Esq., as following another and that is asserted to be an earlier work of Landseer’s—‘a mule’ in 1815.
“At page 60 you speak of ‘the magnificent dog to which we have formerly referred’ as ‘the property of a gentleman in Liverpool or a Mr. Bullock, having reference to the famous picture, ‘Travellers in the Snow.’
“Without giving any opinion as to ‘the minor works of the painter,’ when ‘he was little more than an infant,’ of which of course I know nothing, but I unhesitatingly claim a precedence of the dog before the Mule and Pointer of W. H. Simpson, Esq., in 1815, as well from the facts I will state as from the intercourse with Sir Edwin Landseer himself. ‘The dog’ was the property of my mother-in-law, who resided here, and who received it in 1814 from a Swiss gentleman who had obtained ‘Lion’ and another direct from the Monastery of St. Bernard. You will perceive that Thomas Landseer records, in his etching ‘from the drawing by his brother Edwin, that he did it, aged thirteen;’ as he was born in 1802, consequently, the etching was made in 1815. Now, Sir Edwin himself told me that it was his first work, and of course could not forget any of the circumstances; ‘that he met the dog in London streets under the care of a man servant, whom he followed to Mrs. L. W. Borde’s residence, who permitted him to make a sketch of it.’ Your remark that the drawing was done by Sir Edwin when he was nineteen years of age, and in the year 1821, is clearly a mistake, for ‘Lion’ was never in London since 1815, and died in 1821. There were several litters of puppies in that interval, one of which, a brindled dog that was named ‘Cæsar,’ is with ‘Lion’ in the picture of ‘Travellers in the Snow,’ and I myself sold this one at Tattersall’s, where he fetched thirty-five guineas at open sale, but I never heard who bought him. The breed is now quite extinct.
“I had the pleasure of often speaking with Sir Edwin on this subject, and he told me he had the original sketch somewhere, and that if he could find it I should have it, but of course this was some years ago.