Tag: Edwin Landseer

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-73) was an English painter who was born in London in 1802, the son of the engraver John Landseer (1769-1852). Trained by his father to sketch animals from life, he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy when he was only thirteen years old.and that same year, (1815), he received a silver medal from the Society of Arts for his drawing of a hunter. By the age of 16 he was a constant and active exhibitor at the RA, being elected as an Associate in 1826, when he was only 24. In 1824 when he came to Scotland for the first time to visit Sir Walter Scott, he fell in love with the Highlands, later visiting the region every year, finding inspiration in its marvellous landscapes and scenery, where he drew, hunted and found rest. Landseer was elected a full Academician in 1931. Most of his pictures were well known from excellent engravings of them by his elder brother Thomas (1796-1800). The publication of numerous prints won him a vast and devoted popular audience. Despite later suffering a severe nervous breakdown due to the pressure of work, Landseer continued to paint pictures of high quality, which enhanced his popularity. “The Monarch of the Glen” was exhibited in 1851; the bronze lions at the foot of Nelson’s Monument in Trafalgar Square were modeled by him (1859-66). Landseer was the most famous English artist of his generation, and he was mourned throughout the nation when he died in 1873. He was accorded the honor of public funeral, and he was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral alongside Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and J.M.W. Turner.