Jessica Crabtree

March 7, 1802: Birth of English nature artist Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

Landseer’s life

Landseer was born in London to a family who encouraged their children’s early artistic talents and cultivated a deep appreciation for nature. Edwin was the youngest of seven surviving children, all of whom became artists. His prodigious abilities won him praise very early on and marked him for a career in painting and illustration, earning him a place in the Royal Academy.

As a young man, he contradicted the popular image of the artist as a troubled, taciturn individual; he was an engaging, charming socialite with a gracious manner and an eager mind.

Most of all he was beloved for the careful and sensitive portrayals of domestic animals and wildlife that established him as the Victorian era’s pre-eminent animal painter. He was intimately acquainted with the anatomies of the animals he painted and with their natural surroundings; from specialty dog breeds favored by the nobility, to the majestic wildlife of the Scottish Highlands, to lowly livestock – all of his subjects received equal treatment.
Landseer, Self-Portrait (c.1840)

All this won him the admiration of the public, his fellow artists, and even royalty – he was a frequent guest & tutor in the home of Queen Victoria (who knighted him in 1850).

Ironically, Landseer’s best-known works are not paintings at all; the four giant bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in London were one of his final great accomplishments, and evidence of his equal talents as a sculptor.

Sadly, as his health gradually declined later in adulthood, increasing substance abuse caused irreparable damage both to his career and to his mind. His death in 1873 marked the passing of a national icon; he was mourned throughout the country and buried with honors in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Above: “Monarch of the Glen” (1851);
Below: “Heads of Sheep and Cattle”

“Sleeping Bloodhound” (1835)

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