Lot 76: SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. (1802-1873) THE LADY EMILY PEEL (D. 1924) WITH HER FAVOURITE DOGS

Oil on canvas 152 by 78.5 cm.; 59 3/4 by 30 3/4 in. The sitter was the daughter of George, 8th Marquess of Tweeddale K.T. and his wife Lady Susan Montagu, daughter of the 5th Duke of Manchester. In 1856 she married the Rt Hon. Sir Robert Peel, 3rd Bt. (1822-1895) the son of the celebrated Prime Minister, and friend and patron of Landseer, Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bt. Her husband was M.P. for Tamworth, Huntingdon and for Blackburn between 1850 and 1886. He was a Lord of the Admiralty between 1855 and 1857, and in 1856 was Attache to Lord Granville's Special Embassy to Russia at the coronation of Czar Alexander II. It was probably at this time that Lady Peel acquired the beautiful Russian Borzoi dogs shown in this picture. Lady Emily Peel, who appears to have been infatuated by Landseer, wrote in 1860 to him of her regrets that she was deprived, through living abroad in Geneva at that time, of the "opportunity....to sit to you for the completion of myself and funny dogs this winter". Her letter from Geneva states that she hopes that he "might fancy a little visit here? I have entirely hung up my own private room with engravings from your pictures". In February 1862 she wrote: "I am miserable at not seeing you. I made an attempt last week but unsuccessfully and went away in despair". A few days later she declared herself "your slave whenever you wish to summon me". Landseer, who was suffering from depression, wrote of Lady Peel., "Kind Lady E. Peel keeps on writing for me to go to Villa Lammermoor and says she will undertake my recovery". She was clearly charmed and excited when her annually expressed wish to see herself and her borzois on the walls of the Royal Academy was finally realised. The Art Journal throught the painting "as graceful as anything that bears his name". PROVENANCE Painted for Sir Robert Peel, Bt., but never delivered during the Artist's lifetime; Henry Graves, 1887 EXHIBITED Royal Academy, 1872, no. 25; Manchester. Jubilee Exhibition, 1887, no. 634 LITERATURE James Dafforne, Pictures by Sir Edwin Landseer, 1873, p. 82, no. 23; Algernon Graves, Catalogue of the Works of the late Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. 1875, p. 36; Campbell Lennie, Landseer The Victorian Paragon, 1976, pp. 233-234 ENGRAVED By T.L. Atkinson, 1879.