A troubled talent

In a photograph of 1860, Sir Edwin Landseer (1802–73), seated with his sketch pad (right), regards the camera with fiery eyes, his hair tousled, whiskers bushy, the mouth pugnacious. Once, when spotted on an annual visit to his beloved Highlands, he was mistaken for a poacher due to his short, sturdy build. He would stay in Border country with fellow dog lover Sir Walter Scott, who reported that Landseer had ‘drawn every dog in the house’, later describing his canine paintings as ‘the most magnificent things I ever saw—leaping and bounding, and grinning on the canvas’.

Landseer, however, was a Londoner, growing up in St John’s Wood, gazing over the fields that still dominated between Marylebone and Hampstead and honing his skills drawing sheep and cows. He quickly established himself and introduced a menagerie to his spacious villa and garden, built on former farmland.

Landseer was a wit, raconteur, lifelong bachelor and dandy. A friend of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the artist was frequently seen at the great houses of England, yet he suffered a breakdown at the age of 37 and struggled with mental health for the rest of his life. The Queen described his death as a ‘merciful release, as for the last three years he had been in a most distressing state, half out of his mind, yet not entirely so’.