No artist among Englishmen, not even Turner, Stothard, Wilkie, nor Hogarth himself, owed so much of his popular honours to engraving as Edwin Landseer; in Mr. Thomas Landseer’s hands, and by the hands of other skilful engravers, the pictures of the distinguished animal-painter obtained a popularity which would otherwise be impossible; and it may be said, with but little strain on the terms, that the engravers have repaid his son for the devotion of John Landseer to their art. Not only was the popularity of Sir Edwin immensely extended by engravings, but the greater part of his fortune accrued by means of copyrights and the sale of prints.
Having got over the early difficulties of his profession, the first works of John Landseer were vignettes after De Loutherbourg’s landscapes; intended, says the author of an excellent article in “The Literary Gazette,” to which we are indebted for some of the facts of this biography of the engraver, for the “Bible” of Macklin, the once “great” publisher. These plates were produced in the heat of the contest between Alderman Boydell and Macklin, who struggled which should employ the ablest artists to paint for their respective ventures in engraving. The “Shakespeare” of the former enthusiastic speculator is the best known of these publications. To him, indirectly, we owe the establishment of the now defunct British Institution, and all the knowledge of ancient and modern art which it diffused during more than sixty years.
One of Boydell’s efforts to establish his large venture secured the aid of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was considered not only the ablest portrait-painter of that day, but acceptable to the public as a producer of historical and fancy subjects. As to the last, it is not too much to state that the cost was thrown away. It would have been better for Reynolds’s reputation if he had restricted himself to that mode of art in which he was a master. It is said that a bank-note for fifty pounds slipped in the hand of Sir Joshua had much to do in dispelling the apathy with which he was supposed to regard the schemes of Boydell. This statement may be believed by those who choose to do so, not by us. Nevertheless, Reynolds did paint pictures for Boydell, and among these was the famous “Puck,” which is noteworthy for producing the enormous sum of 980 guineas when sold, with the Rogers Collection, to Earl Fitzwilliam; Rogers bought it at Boydell’s sale for 215l. 5s. It is now at Wentworth House, and very much faded. Boydell gave Reynolds 100 guineas for this painting, of which—when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789, about the time John Landseer was working from De Loutherbourg’s vignettes—Walpole wrote that it was “an ugly little imp, with some character, sitting on a mushroom as big as a millstone.” Reynolds likewise painted for Boydell “The Death of Cardinal Beaufort,” of which there is a version in the Dulwich Gallery. For the former of these the Earl of Egremont gave, at the publisher’s sale, 530l. 8s.; Boydell paid Reynolds 500 guineas for it, June 22, 1789. The well-known painting of “The Witches meeting Macbeth” is noted in Reynolds’s ledger as “not yet begun,” although, June 1786, the President received 500 guineas for it. These were the three pictures produced by Reynolds for Boydell’s “Shakespeare;” their painting is closely connected with our story.
In publishing large and boldly-illustrated works Boydell’s rival was Macklin, who, as he contemplated a “Bible” of even greater pretensions than those of his antagonist’s “Shakespeare,” needed the countenance of the President of the Royal Academy as much as his aldermanic antagonist.[4] Of Reynolds Macklin bought “Tuccia, the Vestal Virgin,” an illustration of Gregory’s “Ode to Meditation,” for which he paid, says Northcote, 300 guineas, though Reynolds’s ledger refers to the receipt of 200 guineas only; Macklin bought for 500 guineas “The Holy Family,” which is now in the National Gallery; and, for a still larger sum,—which it would be difficult to ascertain, as the entry in Reynolds’s ledger confuses it with the prices of various works, in all more than two thousand pounds—a painting which is sometimes called “Macklin’s Family Picture,” or “The Cottagers,” otherwise “The Gleaners,” and represents an Arcadian scene, such as Macklin would have rejoiced to realize as it might appear before the door of a cottage, with the publisher, his wife, and their daughter seated in domestic happiness, with Miss Potts,[5] a dear and beautiful friend of theirs,
Low Life.
standing with a sheaf of corn on her head; the last-named figure claims the greatest interest from all who admire the works of the Landseers; because, in a short time after the damsel sat to Sir Joshua in this charming guise, she was married to John, the young engraver, and thus became the mother of Thomas, Charles, Edwin Henry, and four daughters of his name.[6] It is understood that John Landseer and Miss Potts were first acquainted in the house of Macklin, and it is believed that the marriage was, in more than a single sense, an artistic one. Bartolozzi engraved, in 1794, the portrait of a Miss Emily Pott, after Reynolds, as “Thais.” This was not the lady now in question.
The introduction of these lovers to each other occurred, we believe, through the employment of John Landseer by Macklin to execute plates for his “Bible.” In these works, several of the best engravers of that time were associated with him; among them Bromley, Heath, and Skelton. Not long after this, that is, in 1792, we find John Landseer exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the only year, we believe, ere he became an Associate of that body, in which he vouchsafed to do so. His contribution was “View from the Hermit’s Hole, Isle of Wight” (No. 541), and his address was given at 83, Queen Anne Street East.[7] A few years later he was occupied in the production of plates from drawings by Turner and Ibbetson, styled “Views in the Isle of Wight,” a series which came to an early end. John Landseer’s share of this work was confined to “Orchard Bay,” “Shanklin Bay,” and “Freshwater Bay.” He engraved “High Torr,” after Turner, for Whitaker’s “History of Richmondshire,” a very fine specimen of his skill; this book was published by Longmans in 1823; and, for “The Picturesque Tour in Italy,” he executed “The Cascade of Terni,” which is one of Turner’s best pictures. These were, we believe, all Landseer’s transcripts from the works of the great master of English landscape art. His largest series of plates was styled “Twenty Views of the South of Scotland,” and made after drawings by James Moore: another group of engravings was executed from drawings of animals by the Dutch masters, Rubens, Snyders, Rembrandt, and others; these plates show not only his remarkable skill, but the current of his mind towards animal subjects, such as his sons, Thomas and Edwin Henry, have pre-eminently illustrated. In addition to the above we have “A Series of Engravings illustrating those important events recorded in the Sacred Scriptures,” “which have been selected from Raphael, &c., with critical notices,” 1833; and six plates to “Vates, or the Philosophy of Madness,” 1840.