Sir Edwin H. Landseer

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer was one of the most celebrated animal painters of his time. As a young boy, he drew lions and monkeys at a menagerie, or "royal zoo", in London, and at the age of thirteen, he exhibited his sketches of mules and dogs at the Royal Academy. Beginning in the 1840s, Landseer's famous deer paintings took on a dramatic and introspective quality. The human presence, so dominant in his sporting pictures of the 1820s, began to disappear. As represented in his famous piece, The Sanctuary (1842), his deer subjects became images of both grandeur and vulnerability, set in sublime and powerful landscapes. Although Landseer is best known for his paintings, many of which were created for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, he also designed the four bronze lions flanking Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London.