Landseer’s election in 1806. There were only five such members of the
Academy during the interval in question, and Val. Green, Collyer, James
Heath, Anker Smith, and James Fittler were tenants of the five posts.
The intensity of professional feeling on the subject may be surmised
from this fact.
There is this much to be said about John Landseer’s alleged neglect of
his own profession for the studies of an archæologist: he published
“Observations on the Engraved Gems brought from Babylon to England by
Abraham Lockett, Esq., considered with reference to Scripture History;”
but this was not done until 1817, or ten years after the memorializing
of the Royal Academy. The object of this work was to show that
Babylonian cylinders, the “gems” in question, were not used as talismans
or amulets, but as signets of monarchs or princes--a conclusion which is
not far from the now accepted truth. He next issued “Sabæan Researches,”
1823, a work founded on remains brought from “Babylon,” by the
above-named traveller, comprising letters on antiquities, and lectures
delivered at the Royal Institution. These works have been superseded by
later ones, and more scientific studies than were to be expected from an
author who had been bred to another profession. He likewise published a
discursive “Description of Fifty of the Earliest Pictures in the
National Gallery,” 1834. He produced twenty plates by way of
contribution to the “Antiquities of Dacca” (begun in 1816), a work which
was never completed; this imperfectness likewise marked that book on the
National Gallery which bears “End of Vol. I.” by way of “Finis,” to a
tome which has no successor. He issued “The Review of Publications of
Art,” 1808, a periodical of trenchant quality, but brief career; and he
promoted a second periodical styled “The Probe,” 1837, which seemed--for
it ran to not more than half-a-dozen numbers--designed to oppose the
then recently-established “Art-Union” journal. The chief task of his
later years was engraving his son Edwin’s famous picture of “The Dogs of
St. Bernard,” on which he wrote a small explanatory pamphlet styled
“Some Account of the Dogs and the Pass of St. Bernard.” In 1826 he was
appointed one of the “Engravers to his Majesty.” Later, he exhibited at
the Royal Academy some studies in water-colours from so-called Druidical
Temples. He died on the 29th of February, 1852, aged eighty-three. It is
a curious fact that on his death, and the vacancy caused in the Academy
by that event, Leslie proposed that the disabilities of engravers should
be removed.
The chief work of John Landseer was the bringing-up of his sons; in this
he was thoroughly successful, and worthy of more
[Illustration: _The Highland Shepherd’s Dog._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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