On the Common (1815-18) by Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73). Source: “Studies and Sketches by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A.” (1875): 258. “Lent by Frederick Millbank, Esq., M.P.” [Click on image to enlarge it.] Formatting and text by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Hathi Trust and the University of Michigan and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document, or cite it in a print one.]
Commentary in the Art-Journal
The group of animals entitled ‘On the Common,’ is also from a pen-and-ink drawing made when the artist was quite a boy—between the years 1815 and 1818—and very probably on Hampstead Heath: the three animals in the foreground are most naturally grouped—one sometimes has thus seen them standing in a shower of rain, as if they would shield each other— and the foreshortening of two of them could not be better Wilkie, writing in 1818, about a picture of a donkey by the juvenile painter, says: " Young Landseer’s jackasses are also good." [258]
Bibliography
“Studies and Sketches by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A.” Art-Journal (1875): 257-60. Hathi Trust version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 24 March 2014
Last modified 25 March 2014