Thomas Landseer - Alexander and Diogenes

Thomas Landseer (1793 or 1794 – 20 January 1880) was a British artist best known for his

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

s and

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

s, particularly those of paintings by his youngest brother

Edwin Landseer Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. However, his best-known works are the lion sculptures at the bas ...

Life

Landseer was born in London, the eldest of the fourteen children of actress Jane Potts and engraver John Landseer. Seven of the children survived to adulthood and all became artists; his younger brothers were painters and later Royal Academicians

Charles Landseer Charles Landseer (12 August 1799 – 22 July 1879) was an English painter, mostly of historical subjects. Life He was born in London on 12 August 1799, the second son of the engraver John Landseer, and the elder brother of the animal painter, ...

and

. Like his father, Thomas was deaf. He was the only sibling to marry, his wife's name was Belinda. His son

George Landseer George Landseer (1829–1878 London) was a British painter. He was the nephew of Sir Edwin Henry Landseer and his father Thomas Landseer was also an artist. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools in 1846 and exhibited at the Royal Academy ...

became a portrait and landscape painter. Like his siblings, Landseer was taught artistic techniques by his father. He then studied under painter

Benjamin Robert Haydon Benjamin Robert Haydon (; 26 January 178622 June 1846) was a British painter who specialised in grand historical pictures, although he also painted a few contemporary subjects and portraits. His commercial success was damaged by his often tactles ...

alongside his brother Charles and William Bewick. He began etching aged 14, copying his precocious brother's drawings. Thomas continued to make etched copies of Edwin's works in later life, including '' Dignity and Impudence'' (1841), '' Alexander and Diogenes'' (1852), '' The Monarch of the Glen'' (1852) and, his last work, ''The Font'' (1875). His soft-ground etchings complimented his brother's animal paintings, and sales of the popular prints (retailing for between 3 and 10

guineas The guinea (; commonly abbreviated gn., or gns. in plural) was a coin, minted in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from t ...

) contributed to his brother's fame and fortune. He assisted his brother with giving art lessons to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

and Prince Albert. Landseer produced satirical etchings of monkeys in human clothing for ''Monkeyana, or, Men in Miniature'' (1827), and dedicated his ''Characteristic Sketches of Animals'' (1832) to the Zoological Society. He also produced illustrations for

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poe ...

's '' Devil's Walk'' (1831). He also exhibited paintings at the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it w ...

and the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

. He was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1867 for his etchings. He edited a biography of William Bewick published in 1871. He died at 11 Grove End Road, St. John's Wood, on 20 January 1880. He was buried at

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

References

;Notes ;Footnotes ;Bibliography * *

External links

Portraits
at the National Portrait Gallery * *
Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Landser, Thomas 1790s births 1880 deaths English engravers Associates of the Royal Academy Burials at Highgate Cemetery