3-053-448 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sir Edwin Landseer modelling the lions for Trafalgar-square, 1873. 'The lions...bear noble testimony to Sir Edwin's capacity as a sculptor, by their grand yet naturalistic style, if not otherwise...he addressed himself mainly to that love of animals and field sports which is a national trait; hence his popularity was perhaps greater with us than it would have been with any other nation...His animals had often a sleek, subdued self-consciousness, as though they had been prepared for a drawing-room inspection...no painter of animal life can for a moment be compared to him for intelligent invention, for humour and its congenial pathos, for breadth, variety, and subtlety of observation. No painter has ever so widened and deepened our sympathies with the dumb creatures that minister so largely to our pleasures and necessities; no painter so well deserved the epithet he fairly won of the "Shakspeare of the Animal World"...We are indebted to Henry Graves and Co., for their permission to copy...[their] chromolithograph...[The original picture] was painted by Mr. John Ballantyne, at the suggestion of Sir Edwin himself, who gave several sittings for the purpose in Baron Marochetti's studio.' From "Illustrated London News", 1873.