Edwin Landseer, English, 1802-1873
Title: A King Charles Spaniel
Date: 1845
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
35 x 35 cm
Signed: lower right: Landseer E
Credit Line: Bequeathed, 1980
Object Number: NGI.4333
ProvenanceBequeathed, Private Collection, June 1980
Exhibition HistoryRecent Acquisitions 1980-1981, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 5 August - 27 September 1981
Label TextLandseer was one of the most successful artists of the Victorian period. He specialised in painting animals and was also the sculptor of the bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. This picture may be a study for one of the two spaniels that feature in The Cavalier’s Pets (1845; Tate Gallery). King Charles II popularised Cavalier King Charles spaniels in the seventeenth century. Interest in these companion dogs was revitalised by Queen Victoria in the nineteenth century. Landseer, one of the Queen’s favourite artists, painted her pet spaniel, Dash, in 1838.