+ Expand

Artist or Maker: Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, R.A. (1802-1873)

+ Expand

Provenance: Presumably, George, 5th Earl of Essex (1757-1839), Cassiobury Park, and by inheritance to his wife,
Catherine, Countess of Essex, Cassiobury Park.
Mrs. A.S. Fuller, by 1931.
S.G. Fuller; Christie's, London, 18 October 1974, lot 123 (sold £1,985).
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 21 October 1977, lot 67 (sold £6,500).
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, 18 June 1985, lot 11 (sold £39,600).

+ Expand

Exhibited: London, Royal Academy, The Works of the Late Sir Edwin Landseer, Winter Exhibition, 1874, no. 227 (lent by the Countess of Essex).
London, Loan Exhibition of Sporting Pictures in Aid of The London Foot Hospital, by kind permission of Viscount Allendale, 1931, lent by Mrs A.S. Fuller.

+ Expand

Literature: J. Dafforne, Pictures by Sir Edwin Landseer, with Descriptions and a Biographical Sketch of the Painter, London, 1873, p. 88.
A. Graves, Catalogue of the Late Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., London, 1874, pp. 22, 43.
F.G. Stephens, Memoirs of Sir Edwin Landseer, London, 1874, p. 179.

+ Expand

Notes: J. Burnet

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

By the time that Landseer painted this picture, circa 1835, he had already established a reputation for himself as one of the most precocious and talented artists of his generation, and had demonstrated in his work, the qualities which were to make him the most celebrated animal painter of the nineteenth century.

A child prodigy, Landseer was elected an associate of the Royal Academy at the youthful age of twenty-four and a full Academician only five years later in 1831. By this time, he had established an influential network of, predominantly aristocratic, patrons, which led to his work finding favour with the young Princess Victoria, who commissioned numerous portraits of her family, pets and other animals, following her accession to the throne in 1837.

Part of his popularity derived from the success of his highland subjects. The romantic perception of the highlands went back to James Macpherson's publication in 1760-63 of the poems of Ossian and had been enhanced by Sir Walter Scott's depiction of the sublime landscape of the highlands peopled by ghillies, clansmen and peasants, in Rob Roy and The Lady of the Lake. By the 1820s, the cult of the highlands had expanded to include a fascination with highland sport and many of the British elite sought to rent or buy stretches of moorland and hill themselves. Landseer first visited Scotland in 1824 and stayed on the estate of the Duke of Atholl (1755-1830) for whom he was to encapsulate a day's sport in the highlands with his picture The Death of the Stag in Glen Tiltt (1824-30; The Blair Charitable Trust, Blair Castle). Numerous other sporting pictures set in the highlands followed, often with a narrative or historic interest (for example, The Hunting of Chevy Chase; 1825-26, Birmingham Musuems and Art Gallery). Landseer's iconic masterpiece Monarch of the Glen (1851; Diageo, on loan to the National Museums of Scotland), was painted at the height of his reputation and he continued painting significant highland pictures into the early 1860s.

Hawking was a theme which Landseer made the focal point of a number of pictures in the 1830s, most dramatically in Hawking (in the Olden Time), Kenwood, circa 1832; fig. 1), the foreground of which is dominated by a peregrine hawk bringing down a heron against a stormy sky, the landscape of which recalls his highland subjects. The present picture is set against a similar landscape, again with a dramatically stormy sky and low horizon. Here, the falconer with a falcon on his wrist, and a young boy holding a pair of deerhounds, watch as a bird soars high above. The sport of hawking was associated with the chivalric life of knights in the middle-ages. In the early nineteenth century, hawking enjoyed a resurgence of popularity among aristocratic sportsmen. References to hawking abound in Scott's novels and Landseer's historical subjects, such as Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time (circa 1824, The Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth) and Interior of a Castle Courtyard (circa 1834, Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery), evoking the romantic vision of the old way of life and the chivalric code that way of life entailed. Landseer portrays hawking as part of a more noble way of life for example Lord Richard Cavendish and his Dog, Spot (circa 1827, private collection) and Return from Hawking (circa 1835-37, private collection), the composition of which is dominated by the figure of the humble falcon trainer rather than the fine courtly figures of Lord Egerton and his family.

By the time of its exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1874, this picture was in the collection of Catherine, Countess of Essex, wife of the late Earl of Essex. George, 5th Earl of Essex (1757-1839), was an important early patron of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), who painted a number of watercolours for him of his two houses, Hampton Court in Herefordshire and Cassiobury Park, near Watford and Hertfordshire, and also sold him Walton Bridge (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne), Purfleet and the Essex Shore (private collection) and Trout Fishing in the Dee (The Taft Musuem, Cincinnati). Essex's collection also included a picture by Landseer, The Cat's Paw (c.1824; Minneapolis Musuem of Art, Minneapolis) and it seems likely that he purchased the present picture.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.