Saturday, July 23, 2011

Painting of the Day: “A Highland Breakfast,” Sir Edwin Landseer, 1834

A Highland Breakfast
Landseer, 1834
The Victoria & Albert Museum
Edwin Landseer loved dogs, or at least painting them. And, I can tell you that dog’s love breakfast. So, this painting is the perfect loving combination.

In this 1834 canvas by Landseer, called “A Highland Breakfast,” we see a young mother feeding her child while the family dogs enjoy their breakfast from a large tub nearby. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1834 when a reviewer noted, “the group of terriers and hounds... socially toiling with their teeth.... [and the] young mother giving her child the breast... the innocence of the latter, and the truth and nature of the former are equally striking.” This truth was the hallmark of Landseer’s work. The artist had an innate ability to combine a genre scene with his beloved canine studies, and does so effortlessly here in this intimate Scottish setting.

This painting was another of the many genre works collecting by the celebrated John Sheepshanks.

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