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. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

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 John Landseer (1762/3? – 20 February 1852) was an English landscape engraver. Birth Landseer was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincoln in 1769, according to Cosmo Monkhouse, or in London in 1761, according to his son Edwin's biographer ...

. Seven of the children survived to adulthood and all became artists; his younger brothers were painters and later Royal Academicians Charles Landseer and

. Like his father, Thomas was deaf. He was the only sibling to marry, his wife's name was Belinda. His son George Landseer 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 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 Great Britain between 1663 and 1814, that contained approximately one-quarter of an ounce of gold. The name came from the Guinea region in West Africa, from where m ...

) 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 her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

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 Lak ...

'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