1803-1874 British Sir Edwin Landseer Galleries Landseer was something of a child prodigy whose artistic talents were recognized early on; he studied under several artists, including his father John Landseer, an engraver, and Benjamin Robert Haydon, the well-known and controversial history painter who encouraged the young Landseer to perform dissections in order to fully understand animal musculature and skeletal structure. At the age of just 13, in 1815, Landseer exhibited works at the Royal Academy. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy at the age of 24, and an Academician of the Royal Academy five years later in 1831. He was knighted in 1850, and although elected President of the Royal Academy in 1866 he declined the invitation. Landseer was a notable figure in 19th century British art, and his works can be found in Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kenwood House and the Wallace Collection in London. He also collaborated with fellow painter Frederick Richard Lee. Windsor Castle in Modern Times (1841-1845) Queen Victoria and her family at Windsor Castle.Landseer's popularity in Victorian Britain was considerable. He was widely regarded as one of the foremost animal painters of his time, and reproductions of his works were commonly found in middle-class homes. Yet his appeal crossed class boundaries, for Landseer was quite popular with the British aristocracy as well, including Queen Victoria, who commissioned numerous portraits of her family (and pets) from the artist. Landseer was particularly associated with Scotland and the Scottish Highlands, which provided the subjects (both human and animal) for many of his important paintings, including his early successes The Hunting of Chevy Chase (1825-1826) and An Illicit Whiskey Still in the Highlands (1826-1829), and his more mature achievements such as the majestic stag study Monarch of the Glen (1851) and Rent Day in the Wilderness (1855-1868). Saved (1856) Landseer's paintings of dogs were highly popular among all classes of society.So popular and influential were Landseer's paintings of dogs in the service of humanity that the name Landseer came to be the official name for the variety of Newfoundland dog that, rather than being black or mostly black, features a mix of both black and white; it was this variety Landseer popularized in his paintings celebrating Newfoundlands as water rescue dogs, most notably Off to the Rescue (1827), A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (1838), and Saved (1856), which combines Victorian constructions of childhood with the appealing idea of noble animals devoted to humankind ?? a devotion indicated, in Saved, by the fact the dog has rescued the child without any apparent human direction or intervention. In his late 30s Landseer suffered what is now believed to be a substantial nervous breakdown, and for the rest of his life was troubled by recurring bouts of melancholy, hypchondria, and depression, often aggravated by alcohol and drug use (Ormond, Monarch 125). In the last few years of his life Landseer's mental stability was problematic, and at the request of his family he was declared insane in July 1872. Landseer's death on 1 October 1873 was widely marked in England: shops and houses lowered their blinds, flags flew at half-staff, his bronze lions at the base of Nelson's column were hung with wreaths, and large crowds lined the streets to watch his funeral cortege pass (Ormond, Monarch 135). Landseer was buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London .  Related Paintings of Sir Edwin Landseer :. | Victoria | Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Bal Costume of 12 may 1842 | The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner | Windsor Castle in Modern Times (mk25) | Dignity and Impudence |
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Crane, Walter
English Golden Age Illustrator, 1845-1915 English painter, illustrator, designer, writer and teacher. He showed artistic inclinations as a boy and was encouraged to draw by his father, the portrait painter and miniaturist Thomas Crane (1808-59). A series of illustrations to Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott (Cambridge, MA, Harvard U., Houghton Lib.) was shown first to Ruskin, who praised the use of colour, and then to the engraver William James Linton, to whom Crane was apprenticed in 1859. From 1859 to 1862 Crane learnt a technique of exact and economical draughtsmanship on woodblocks.
Bartolommeo Caporali
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1420-1505
Pieter Coecke van Aelst
(August 14, 1502 - December 6, 1550) was a Flemish painter. He studied under Bernaert van Orley and later lived in Italy before entering the Antwerp Guild of painters in 1527. In 1533, he travelled to Constantinople for one year in a failed attempt to establish business connections for his tapestry works. Van Aelst established a studio in Brussels in 1544, where he created paintings and tapestries. His students include Gillis van Coninxloo, Willem Key, Hans Vredeman de Vries, Michiel Coxcie, and possibly Pieter Brueghel the Elder, who did eventually marry van Aelst's daughter, Mayken. His second wife, Mayken Verhulst, was an artist as well, and, according to Carel van Mander, the first teacher of her grandchildren, Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder. He was also the uncle of Joachim Bueckelaer. Van Aelst's studio is also well known for its engraved works. In particular, van Aelst is noted for his 1539 translation of Sebastiano Serlio's architectural treatise, Architettura, which is credited with having played a crucial role in spreading Renaissance ideas to the Low Countries and hastening the transition from the late Gothic style prevalent in the area at the time. He was in charge of the spectacular decorations for the 1549 Royal entry into Antwerp of Philip II of Spain, "the most famous entry of the century", according to Roy Strong.