[20] The “H.” is always understood as indicating an Honorary
Exhibitor, in which capacity the young artist is thrice represented
in the catalogue of this the Academy Exhibition for 1815. See below.
“Queen Anne Street East” had become “Foley Street” between 1802 and
1815. Landseer, as his sisters tell me, was accepted as an “Honorary
Exhibitor” on account of his youth, which was supposed to preclude him
from being considered an artist in full.
[21] See “Autobiographical Recollections of the late C. R. Leslie,
R.A.” 1860, vol. ii. p. 44.
[22] At the Academy Exhibition, Winter, 1874, No. 144. was “Sir E.
Landseer when a Boy.” Drawn by J. Hayter, Esq. Pencil, J. Hayter, Esq.
[23] There appear to be doubts of the extent of E. Landseer’s
obligations to Haydon, and the terms employed by the former on this
subject (see his “Correspondence,” 1876, ii., p. 288) affirm that the
writer had been serviceable to Landseer in making him known, rather
than by direct teaching:--“I lent him my dissections from the lion,
which he copied, and when he began to show real powers, I took a
portfolio of his drawings to Sir George Beaumont’s one day at a grand
dinner, and showed them all round to the nobility when we retired to
coffee. When he painted his “Dogs,” I wrote to Sir George and advised
him to buy it.” “In short, I was altogether the means of bringing him
so early into notice. These things may be trifles, but when I see a
youth strutting about and denying his obligations to me, I may as
well note them down.” “His genius was guided by me.” Again, p. 318
of the same volume, Haydon averred:--“My influence upon English art
has certainly been radical. Edwin Landseer dissected animals under my
eye, copied my anatomical drawings, and carried my principles of study
into animal painting. His genius, thus tutored, has produced sound and
satisfactory results.” P. 472 of the same repeats the same claims,
and discriminates between the degree of instruction said to have been
given to the Landseers generally:--“This was the principle I explained
to my pupils; to Eastlake first, and to the Landseers and others
afterwards. To Edwin I lent my anatomical studies of the Lion, which
guided him to depict dogs and monkeys. Charles and Thomas, Bewick,
Harvey, Prentice, Lance, were all instructed in the same principle.” We
may add that Mrs. Mackenzie (born Landseer) still owns a human skeleton
which was prepared and articulated by her brothers, Thomas and Charles,
who occupied a studio at Blenheim Steps, Oxford Street, where they
dissected a “subject.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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