LANDSEER, JOHN, Associate Engraver of the Royal Academy, was born at Lincoln in 1769. He learnt engraving under Byrne, a landscape-engraver of much ability ; as early as 17 93 acquired some celebrity by engraving some vignettes, after Louthcrbourg, for Maclise's Bible ; and increased his reputation by engravings executed for Bowyer's History of England' and Moore's ' Views in Scotland.' Mr. Landseer also published an excellent series of engravings of animals from the works of Rubens, Soyders, Gilpin, and other eminent artists. In 1S06 Mr. Landaeer delivered a course of lectures on engraving at the Royal Institution, which were published in the following year, and excited somo discussion in the profession on account of some peculiar views promulgated in them. In the same year he was elected an Associate Engraver In the Royal Academy. The subordinate position assigned to engravers in tho Academy—they not being admitted under any circumstances into full membership—was the source of considerable ill-feeling among engravers, and the post of associate engraver had been refused by several eminent engravers when Mr. Landseer accepted it. He annonnced however that he had only done so in the hope of being able to labour at a greater advantage iu striving to remove the obnoxious restriction. Accordingly ho memorialised the president and council on the subject, but after a year or two of correspondence and controversy the claim was rejected. Landaeer's mortification is said to have been so great as to have disgusted him iu a great measure with his profession itself, but, whether this be so or not, he appears from this time to have engraved comparatively little. The literary tastes however which lecturing and controversy had aroused, be seems to have cultivated. Delighting in controversy, he started an art periodical, which soon died ; and one he set on foot long aftei to counteract the mild influence of the Art Journal,' under the title of The Probe,' soon shared alike fate. He published likewise, at various times, several pamphlets and letters. In 1817 he communicated to the Society of
Antiquaries a paper on 'Engraved Gems brought from Babylon,' which was printed in the 'Archmologia; vol xviii. Although possessing little of the requisite learning or mental training for the successful prose cution of such a subject, he continued to follow the game thus started; and after having delivered a course of lectures on Engraved Hiero glyphics' at the Royal Institution, he in 1823 published an elaborate volume entitled `Sabrean Researches.' This was followed in 1834 by a gossipping volume called A Descriptive, Explanatory, and Critical Catalogue of the Earliest Pictures in the National Gallery,' which, though of no more value aesthetically than his previous works were archaeologically, is yet in its discursiveness a somewhat amusing volume. But it is rather as tho father of Edwin Landseer than on his own account that Mr. John Landeeer will be remembered ; and it is note worthy that one of his best engravings, the Dogs of Mount St. Bernard,' is from one of Edwin Landseer's earliest pictures. Mr. Landseer died on the 29th of February 1852 in his eighty-third year, leaving three eons, all of whom have won an honourable, and one a pre-eminent, place in the history of English art.
Thomas LANDSEER, the eldest son of John Landseer, adopted his father's profession, but practised mezzotint iu place of line-engraving. He is best known by his engravings of his brother Edwiu's pictures, many of which are executed in a broad and painter-like style, and with great mastery over the scraper. He has also executed a good deal with the etching-needle, and a series of etchings of monkeys from his own drawings, published under the title of Dlonkeyana; had consider able popularity. Alr.Landseer. is at present engaged on a large engraving of Rosa Bouheur's famous 'Horse-Fair; a work which affords peculiar facilities for the display of his characteristic excellences as an engraver.