Reclining Lion, From Back

Landseer was an artistic prodigy, drawing animals with great realism by age nine. These included a lion displayed at the London Exeter Exchange menagerie, whose dissected body he may later have viewed in 1820. These sketches (1993.248.1619 and 1993.248.1617) suggest not only the artist’s keen powers of observation, but also provide a contrast to the romanticized works by Delacroix through the depiction of the animal’s sparse, apparently inhumane living quarters. The beloved animal painter of Queen Victoria, Landseer later designed the massive lion sculptures in Trafalgar Square.