3-003-829 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Suspense", by E. Landseer, R.A., in the South Kensington Museum, 1861. Engraving from a painting. 'This picture, admirable as a specimen of dog-painting - a branch of art in which Sir E. Landseer has no rival amongst contemporary painters - is also remarkable for the ingenious manner in which it is made to draw upon the imagination, and, with all its integral quiet simplicity, to suggest a tragic incident. A noble bloodhound is represented watching at a closed door for the return of his master, a knight of the olden time, who, after a bloody encounter with some dire foe, has been hastily removed, wounded (perhaps mortally), from the apartment. The steel gauntlets on the table, the tom eagle-plume lying on the floor, and, further still, the stains of fresh blood which disfigure the surface of the latter, are plainly indicative of the quality of the absent hero and the nature of the adventure in which he has been engaged, and the clang and terror of which still seem to fill the air. This picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1834. Unfortunately, the texture of the painting has failed in parts, through the use of asphaltum. It forms part of the Sheepshanks Collection exhibited at the South Kensington Museum'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.