SIR EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER

SIR EDWIN HENRY LANDSEER (1802-1873), greatest English animal-painter, born in London, the son of an engraver and writer on art, trained by his father, sketched animals before he was six years old, and exhibited in the Royal Academy before thirteen; in his early years he portrayed simply the form and colour and movement of animal life, but after his twenty-first year he added usually some sentiment or idea; elected A.R.A. in 1826, and R.A. in 1830; he was knighted in 1853; five years later he won a gold medal in Paris; in 1859 he modelled the Trafalgar Square lions; after 1861 he suffered from mental depression, and declined the Presidency of the Royal Academy in 1866.