Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. 5 plates in mounts very good condition. Year 1974. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Sir Edwin Landseer the centenary of whose death has recently passed was without question the most popular artist of the Victorian era. He was born in 1802 the son of John Landseer an accomplished professional engraver who did much to promote the standing of his craft in the world of art and who is now remembered particularly for his series of lectures on ‘The Art of Engraving’ which he delivered in 1807. His sons Edwin Charles and Thomas were early introduced to drawing and to the technicalities of his trade. From a very early age Edwin was taken out sketching in the open fields of Hampstead Heath as well as to the menagerie at Exeter ‘Change in the Strand. In the 1850s John Landseer reminisced of his son’s youth: … it was a favourite walk with my boys and one day when I had accompanied them Edwin stopped by this stile to admire some sheep and cows which were quietly grazing. At his request I lifted him over and finding him a scrap of paper and a pencil in my pocket I made him sketch a cow. He was very young indeed then not more than six or seven years old. After this we came on several occasions… he would remain until I fetched him in the after-noon. I would then criticise his work and make him correct defects before we left the spot… A number of the pencil sketches of these years survive in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum but it is also interesting to observe that one of the plates (No. 3 in this series) carries studies of donkeys that are direct copies of soft-ground etchings published in 1798 by that superb animal draughtsman Robert Hills. It will also be seen that one of the studies on this plate was etched by Landseer’s brother Thomas who was later to engrave so many of his works in the days of his fame. (SP)