Painted for Henry, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, Bowood House, Wiltshire;
by descent to the present owner

London, Royal Academy, 1837, no. 160;
Liverpool, Academy of Arts, Autumn Exhibition, 1838, no. 48;
London, Royal Academy, The Works of the late Sir Edwin Landseer R.A., Winter 1874, no. 437;
Sheffield, Mappin Art Gallery, Landseer and his World, 5th February - 12th March 1972, no. 47;
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Sir Edwin Landseer, 1981-1982, no. 42;
London, Tate Gallery, Sir Edwin Landseer, 1981-1982, no. 42 

Atheneum, no. 497, 6th May 1837, p. 330;
Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 7, Part 1, 1837, p. 629;
Morning Post, 15th May 1837, p.66;
Mrs. Jameson, Companion to the most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London 1844, p.325, no. 135;
G. Waagen, Tresures of Art in Great Britain, London 1854-77, Vol. 3, p. 164;
C. S. Mann, 'Annotated coy of the 1874 Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogue', V&A Eng MS 86 BB.19, London 1874-77, Vol. 2, p. 62;
A. Graves, Catalogue of the Works of the late Sir Edwin Landseer, London 1874, p. 17, no. 198;
Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Marquess of Lansdowne at Lansdowne House, London and Bowood, Wiltshire, London 1897, p. 51 no. 205;
J. A. Manson, Sir Edwin Landseer R.A., London 1902, p. 81;
L. Errington, 'Monarchs of Glen Tilt', Conoisseur, Vol. 196, November 1977, p. 211, illus. pp. 210-211;
R. Ormond, The Monarch of the Glen, Landseer in the Highlands, Edinburgh 2005, pp. 49-50, illus. pl. 43

ENGRAVED
by J. T. Willmore, A.R.A. and C. G. Lewis

STRUCTURE The canvas is unlined. PAINT SURFACE The painting appears to be in excellent, original condition. There is some minor frame abrasion along the upper and lower edges of the canvas, but otherwise the paint appears to be in stable, undamage condition. ULTRAVIOLET Examination under ultraviolet light reveals signs of a small number of very minor old scattered strengthenings, behind a slightly discoloured varnish. FRAME Held in a gilded British neo baroque frame. EXTERNAL CONDITION REPORT "The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has an old lining. The original was cut from ready primed canvas and squared up. It seems to have been rolled at some time, leaving a vertical craquelure in the quite thick white ground, although there is no sign of instability. The extraordinarily perfect preservation of the painting reflects the rare stability of its background. Every minute fleck of the brush remains perfectly intact, including the smallest detail of the bagpipes, or feathered caps, the final crispness of touch in the eyes of the dogs, or strand of tartan. Landseer clearly added to the sunset in the lower sky with a final denser film, having moved initially from the almost watercolour delicacy of the transparent distant areas to the quite impasted foreground. A small area in the hills of the middle distance to the right seems to have been left in its sketchier underpainted state. A tiny old dent in the head of the central stag is the single sign of past damage, with one or two little horizontal lines of darkened retouching, presumably covering slight white cracks. There is a yellowing varnish, but no trace of wear or disturbance in the exceptionally perfect condition. This report was not done under laboratory conditions." For further information on this lot please contact Julian Gascoigne on +44 (0)207 293 5482, or at julian.gascoigne@laitexier.com.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This beautiful and evocative painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837 to huge public acclaim. With its breathtaking depiction of Highland scenery, and idyllic portrayal of clan life, it perfectly encapsulated the nineteenth century public perception of the Highlands, and captured the imagination of a nation. "This is a picture of first rate excellence in the line of art to which it belongs" wrote one critic in The Gentleman's Magazine, "the animals are perfect". "A bright and beautiful picture, full of variety, life and character" penned Mrs. Jameson, while Waagen, in his Treasures of Art in Great Britain, wrote of the picture; "The character of the men and dogs is admirable, the light keeping the whole most ma♑sterly, the execution careful even in the aꦰccessories, and the colours transparent."

The scene presents a tranquil moment at the culmination of an epic day of adventure and adversity. The noble figure of the clan chieftain, wrapped in his tartan plaids and surrounded by his entourage of retainers, leads his people back down the glen at the end of a day on the hill. Before him his son proudly marches, his head held high, while a piper and a ghillie with his deerhounds ceremoniously escort the procession home. Behind this noble gathering two hill ponies bear the spoils of the hunt, a brace of stags draped across their backs, their magnificent antlers silhouetted against the sky, with the distant mountains receding into the distance. Behind two further deerhounds, one a portrait of the artist's own dog Hafed, lead a pair of amorous keepers who are bearing guns and chatting up lassies with bundles of thatch (at once both a motif of rustic courtship and a display of contrasting masculine and feminine qualities). The processional composition of the panorama underlines the hierarchic nature of Highland society, whilst at the same time the picture imbues a sense of dynastic continuity through the presence of the chieftains' son. Of all Landseer's Scottish scenes there is perhaps no other picture which so acutely and perfectly captures the innate romance of stalking and highland life, with its sense of honour, fealty and tradition. Overlaying this the peaceful scene is bathed in a soft evening light, which fills the landscape with a golden glow and evokes a sense of the harmony bet🍒ween man and the natural world.

Significantly, as with many of Landseer's stalking paintings, the clan chieftain is almost certainly a portrait of the artists close friend and patron James Hamilton, 2^nd Marquess of Abercorn, later 1^st Duke of Abercorn (1811-1885). The view is set on Loch Laggan, from the east shore, looking west down the valley. Abercorn and his wife, Lady Louisa Russell, daughter of the 6^th Duke of Bedford, owned a lodge at Ardvereike on the shores of the loch where Landseer often stayed as a guest, and the walls of which he decorated with charcoal sketches (later destroyed by fire). Landseer had worked extensively for Abercorn's father-in-law during the 1820s, painting many portraits of various members of the Russell family, as well as such great works as Scene on the River Tilt (Private Collection) and Sport in the Highlands (Private Collectio༒n, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland, Edin𒈔burgh).

Landseer first visited the Highlands in 1824, at the age of 22, with his fellow artist C.R. Leslie. After staying ten days with Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, in the borders, he travelled on to Blair Castle, where he stayed with John Murray, 4^th Duke of Atholl. The experience was a revelation, and one that was to have a profound effect upon his art. The dramatic scenery of the Highlands both overwhelmed and intoxicated the young artist, and he was to return every autumn until his death, st﷽aying with a variety of aristocratic hosts, such as the Marquess of Breadalbane, as well as those already mentioned above. Such was the effect of these visits upon thಞe young artist's conscience that from this time on Scottish subjects were to dominate his work, and the most iconic of these are his hunting scenes.

The early decades of the 19^th century witnessed a massive surge in interest in highland scenery, and it was also at this time, too, that the concept of stalking as a sport began to develop in Scotland. Initially an aristocratic preserve pioneered by Prince Albert, the Dukes of Bedford and Atholl, and other notable grandees, stalking would gradually expand in ever increasing popularity through the course of the century. Its development and growth was symptomatic of a larger cultural transformation. T♏he industrial revolution, and the development of the railways, had opened up what was previously an impenetrable upland wilderness, creating access to the southern and central Highlands. Landed gentlemen, who for generations had roamed the forests of their English estates, found their ancestral hunting grounds encroached upon by the spread of industrialisation in the south, and turned in increasing numbers to the Highlands for sanctuary. This concept of the Highlands as a place of relaxation and sport sprang from the more general contemporary appreciation for its wild and sublime beauty. Fed by the romantic depiction of highland life in the novels of Sir Walter Scott, the eighteenth century cult of the sublime had, by the nineteenth century, distilled into a vision of the Highlands as a place of inspiring beauty, innocent people and a picturesque past. With the decline of the crofting communities and the paucity of sheep farming, by the early nineteenth century stalking had become the mainstay of socio-economic life in the Scottish Highlands.

The present painting, was actually commissioned by another of Landseer's great hunting patrons, Henry, 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863), to hang at his country seat of Bowood House. Born in July 1789, the only child of Lord Shelburne, later 1^st Marquess of Lansdowne and his second wife Lady Loiusa Fitzpatrick, the 3^rd Marquess was educated at Westminster and Edinburgh University, before going onto Trinity College, Cambridge where he graduated M.A. in 1801. After an abbreviated Grand Tour following the Peace of Amiens, he entered the House of Commons as M.P. for Calne in 1803 at the age of twenty-two. He quickly caught the attention of both Fox and Pitt and rose to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Ministry of All Talents when still only twenty-five. He remained a highly influential member of the Whig Party in the Commons until 1809, when he succeeded his half-brother as 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne and entered the House of Lords. For the next fifty years he was a dominant figꦫure in the party, bringing the opposition together in parliament, and at Landsdowne House, the great family palace off Berkeleไy Square, and his country seat at Bowood in Wiltshire.

In 1808 he married Lady Louisa Fox Strangways, fifth daughter of Henry Thomas, 2^nd Earl of Ilchester, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. Although the family inheritance had largely been squandered through his father's ex🦂travagance and the great collection of paintings, furniture and antiquities, built up by the 1st Marquess at both L💧ansdowne House and at Bowood largely sold off, the financial acumen which the young Chancellor had brought to the nation's finance was applied with equal fervour to the restitution of the family estates, a task brilliantly accomplished. Indeed so successful was he that by the second decade of the nineteenth century not only were the houses restored and embellished by Sir Robert Smirke, Charles Cockerell, and Charles Barry, but the losses to the paintings collection had been more than put right.

Lansdowne was both an astute collector and a beneficient patron who delighting in entertaining both friends and colleagues in his various houses. Described in his obituary as "a nobleman of very extended taste and knowledge... a princely patron of literature, science, and the fine arts", he showed an intuitive eye when acquiring works of art of the greatest quality, though "without setting forth any pretensꦯion of connoisseurship, without apparently making it a matter of ambition or ostentation to add a gallery of pictures to the other appendages of rank - guided simply by a love of art, and a wish to possess what is beautiful in itself, for it's own sake" [i].

i. see Jameson, lit.op.cit