.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Landseer was the most celebrated British artist of his generation and, along with George Stubbs, the greatest animal painter from the Golden Age of British Art. He combined a knowledge of anatomy and a fluency of technique with an ability to capture an animal’s expression and character, as exemplified in this painting, which was executed in the 1840s, when the artist was at the height of his career. It was commissioned by William Wells of Redleaf, one of Landseer’s closest friends and staunchest patrons, as the pendant to Landseer’s Retriever and Woodcock (Christie’s, New York, 3 December 1998, lot 109, $140,000).
Trained by his father, Landseer was regarded as a child prodigy. Formally admitted to the Royal Academy schools at the age of thirteen in 1816, by the following year he was exhibiting both at the Royal Academy and the Society of Painters in oil and watercolors. His first royal commission came in 1836 when he painted Princess Victoria’s pet spaniel, Dash, as a birthday present commissioned by her mother, the Duchess of Kent. He would become the young queen’s favorite artist, and give her drawing lessons. Landseer’s success and popularity was partly attained through the engravings of his work, which spread his fame throughout the world. The artist’s prints had been widely circulated in France from the 1830s onwards, and at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, his pictures greatly impressed French critics and the public. The art critic Théophile Gautier reflected that ‘Landseer gives his beloved animals soul, thought, poetry, and passion. What worries him is […] the very spirit of the beast, and in this respect there is no painter to match him’ (Les Beaux-Arts en Europe, Paris, 1855, I, pp. 72-77). He was one of the very few foreigners awarded a gold medal in the exhibition.
A shipbuilder by profession, William Wells built up a magnificent collection of paintings, which included at least twenty by Landseer. He owned some of the artist's finest dog paintings including Decoyman's Dog and Duck (R. Ormond, Sir Edwin Landseer, Philadelphia, 1981, p. 194, no. 142, illustrated) and The Shepherd's Grave (ibid., p. 104, no. 61), as well as other important paintings such as Highland Interior (ibid., p. 169, no. 120), and The Sanctuary, now in the Royal Collection. The artist was a frequent visitor to Redleaf, Wells's estate in Kent, regarding it as something of a second home.
We are grateful to Richard Ormond for his kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.
Trained by his father, Landseer was regarded as a child prodigy. Formally admitted to the Royal Academy schools at the age of thirteen in 1816, by the following year he was exhibiting both at the Royal Academy and the Society of Painters in oil and watercolors. His first royal commission came in 1836 when he painted Princess Victoria’s pet spaniel, Dash, as a birthday present commissioned by her mother, the Duchess of Kent. He would become the young queen’s favorite artist, and give her drawing lessons. Landseer’s success and popularity was partly attained through the engravings of his work, which spread his fame throughout the world. The artist’s prints had been widely circulated in France from the 1830s onwards, and at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855, his pictures greatly impressed French critics and the public. The art critic Théophile Gautier reflected that ‘Landseer gives his beloved animals soul, thought, poetry, and passion. What worries him is […] the very spirit of the beast, and in this respect there is no painter to match him’ (Les Beaux-Arts en Europe, Paris, 1855, I, pp. 72-77). He was one of the very few foreigners awarded a gold medal in the exhibition.
A shipbuilder by profession, William Wells built up a magnificent collection of paintings, which included at least twenty by Landseer. He owned some of the artist's finest dog paintings including Decoyman's Dog and Duck (R. Ormond, Sir Edwin Landseer, Philadelphia, 1981, p. 194, no. 142, illustrated) and The Shepherd's Grave (ibid., p. 104, no. 61), as well as other important paintings such as Highland Interior (ibid., p. 169, no. 120), and The Sanctuary, now in the Royal Collection. The artist was a frequent visitor to Redleaf, Wells's estate in Kent, regarding it as something of a second home.
We are grateful to Richard Ormond for his kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue entry.