Alexia Robinson on The Arab Tent by Sir Edwin Landseer
‘When we trained a racehorse at home, it was a struggle to think of a stable name for Premier Portrait by Portrait Gallery. My thoughts turned to my favourite painting in my favourite art gallery, the Wallace Collection – Landseer’s The Arab Tent – so we named him Wally.
'He won 13 races for us and was National Champion point-to-pointer. Because the Wallace Collection is free, I wander in often and just stand in front of this painting. As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it.’
Alexia Robinson is the founder of Love British Food, the National Harvest Service and British Food Fortnight, which this year runs until October 6.
Charlotte Mullins comments on The Arab Tent
Sir Edwin Landseer came from a large artistic family — his father, John, was an engraver and all his siblings became artists. A precocious draughtsman, Landseer began exhibiting at the Royal Academy aged 13 and achieved the highest level of fame in the family, with many of his paintings turned into engravings and widely disseminated.
The Arab Tent was completed in 1866, the year he finished sculpting four lions for the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square. The artist was responding to the growing interest in Orientalism in this painting.
An Arab mare and foal lie on a rug outside an Arab tent. Two Persian greyhounds rest in the tent’s shade, sprawled across a leopard skin, and two monkeys make a bed of palm leaves on the taut canvas above. There are many incongruities in this picture, but Landseer’s mastery of painting animals is never in doubt. He studied them at menageries and in the wild, even dissecting them to understand their anatomy, as did his predecessor George Stubbs. He would anthropomorphise them so they took on human characteristics and traits, with loyal and devoted dogs being a particular favourite.
When he was painting The Arab Tent, Landseer was offered the presidency of the Royal Academy, but turned it down. The press had noticed his ‘nervous state of health’, exacerbated by heavy drinking. Some time later, in 1872, he entered an asylum, dying the following year.
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