DOGS WORRYING A FROG (1822).
SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN AND PARENTAGE.
So much of the family history of this artist as it is needful to repeat, or the reader will care to learn, may be briefly told: it begins with his grandfather, who was a jeweller settled in London, where, in 1761,[2] his father, John Landseer, was born. The senior was on intimate terms with Peter, father of the lawyer and politician, Sir Samuel Romilly. Peter Romilly was descended from a distinguished French family, the first of whom known in this country settled near London after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and acquired a fortune as a wax-bleacher. This Peter was a jeweller of note and wealth, established in Frith Street, Soho, and it is probable that common interest in a craft which is so closely allied to art had much to do with directing the minds of John, and consequently those of his family, to design. It is certain that in the early life of Sir Samuel Romilly he gave considerable attention to painting and its sister studies—architecture, and anatomy as applied to the arts. His biographer tells us that the future lawyer attended the lectures delivered on these subjects by Dr. William Hunter and James Barry at the Royal Academy, and doubtless those which, as we shall presently see, John Landseer, his friend—for the affection of the fathers was continued with the sons—pronounced with noteworthy effect at the Royal Institution. These discourses of John Landseer’s, as printed and published at a later date, and entitled “Lectures on the Art of Engraving,” 1807, still supply the body of one of the best text-books in our language on the principles and practice of that art.
How John Landseer became an engraver may not be difficult to understand when we recollect that the art which he fortunately illustrated, was, for modern use at least, first exercised if not invented by a jeweller and goldsmith, and that most of the early European artists in gold and jewellery not only worked in their proper crafts, but, for the service of the printing-press, incised silver and copper plates with the graver and needle. From Holbein to Stothard, before and since their days, some of the greatest artists have applied their genius to the designing of jewellery. Hogarth engraved on household plate before he etched or cut copper to immortal uses. As etchers, or autographic artists on metal, both John Landseer and his son Edwin distinguished themselves. Conversely, the best etchers have been and are painters, from Dürer, and Rembrandt, and Van Dyck, to MM. Rajon and Palmer of our own day. The etchings of our chief subject are among his least known yet most admirable works; Thomas, Edwin’s senior, another son of John Landseer, was one of the most eminent engravers of this age.
Observing the ability of his son John, Landseer the jeweller obtained for him the assistance of William Byrne, one of the best instructors of that period, who, with Hearne, had been engaged in the production of “The Antiquities of Great Britain,” and singly, in preparing many topographical works, such as “Views of the Lakes of Cumberland,” and “Italian Scenery.” Sea-pieces by Vernet, landscapes by Both and Claude Lorrain, Turner’s contributions to “Britannia Depicta,” and a fine “View of Niagara,” by Wilson, occupied this venerable artist, who was one of the ablest in his profession, and a pupil of Aliamet and Wille, as Hearne, his partner in “The Antiquities,” had been a pupil of William Woollett.[3]
William Byrne was one of those stout “out-siders” of the Royal Academy who, with Woollett, Schiavonetti, Sharp, Hall, and Strange, refused to place their names as candidates for the half-honours of the Associateship to that body so long as the upper grade of Academicianship in full was denied to members of their profession. Some of the more eminent English engravers, among whose names that of Mr. John Pye is distinct, held themselves aloof from the Academical body on this as well as on other accounts. This exclusion of engravers from their full professional honours had, as we shall see, great effect on the career of John Landseer, and the law by which it was produced has only within the last ten years been modified by the admission without reserve of Mr. S. Cousins to the Academicianship, after he, with Mr. Doo, had passed through the anomalous grade of Academician-Engravers, which seemed to have been instituted in order to draw the line sharply between members of their profession and those other artists who practised painting, sculpture and architecture. This line was drawn with such emphasis that Bartolozzi was elected, not as an engraver, but as a painter, he having painted a picture in order to evade the law of the Academy. Byrne, like his pupil, John Landseer, was earnest in charitable works for his fellow-artists; thus, we find his name as one of the Directors of the Society of Engravers for the benefit of poor professors of the art, their widows and orphans. John Landseer was one of the founder-members of the Artists’ Fund, and associated therein with the Schiavonettis, Raimbach, and Heath, to whom as painters, Mulready, Mr. Linnell, and others of good standing were joined. Mr. John Pye was among the most active members of this society, its ablest expositor, and practically its founder.