The Eagle's Nest thumbnail 1
On display
Image of Gallery in South Kensington

The Eagle's Nest

Oil Painting
ca. 1833 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Landseer, Edwin Henry (Sir, RA) (artist)
Place of origin
Great Britain (painted)

Landseer seems to have painted this picture in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. In 1851 a critic wrote that 'the grand melancholy solitude of the Highlands is well expressed, though the tone of the colouring is too heavy'.

Object details

Categories
Paintings
Images Online
Anthropomorphism
Object type
Oil painting
TitleThe Eagle's Nest (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Oil on millboard
Oil Paint
Millboard
Oil Painting
Brief description
Oil painting entitled 'The Eagle's Nest' by Edwin Henry Landseer. Great Britain, ca. 1833.
Physical description
Oil on millboard entitled 'The Eagle's Nest', depicting a nocturnal scene with two eaglets in a nest on a rocky outcropping, guarded by one adult eagle, with another in mid-flight in the distance.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 25.4cm
  • Estimate width: 35.6cm
  • Framed height: 460mm
  • Framed width: 560mm
  • Framed depth: 40mm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990. Framed dims taken from object.
Style
British School
Gallery label
(2002)
50. Edwin Landseer (1803-73)
The Eagle's Nest
Oil on canvas, 25.4 x 35.6 cm (10 x 14 ins)

Landseer became the most famous painter of animals of the nineteenth century. As a precocious youth he had been heavily influenced by the realism of George Stubbs's animal painting, but he added an extra element of anthropomorphism; that is he often gave the creatures he depicted almost human expressions and situations. Landseer grew to love Scotland after his first trip there in 1824, when he visited Sir Walter Scott. He then frequently returned to the landscape of Scotland and the wild creatures he had seen there. This work is a fine example of Landseer depicting birds in a vast natural setting. The wild mountains and the bleak rocks, the few bare sticks of the great bird's nest, have a romantic melancholy which appealed to those who admired the poetry of nature in its untamed state.

Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857 (FA 102)
Credit line
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Object history
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857

Exhibited at the British Institution, 1834, no.276 (1ft 5in x 1ft 8in)
Subjects depicted
Eagle
Nest
Landscape
Summary
Landseer seems to have painted this picture in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. In 1851 a critic wrote that 'the grand melancholy solitude of the Highlands is well expressed, though the tone of the colouring is too heavy'.
Bibliographic references
  • Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 150
  • Richard Ormond, Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2005.
  • Evans, Mark et al. Vikutoria & Arubāto Bijutsukan-zō : eikoku romanshugi kaigaten = The Romantic tradition in British painting, 1800-1950 : masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Japan : Brain Trust, 2002
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
FA.102[O]

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Record createdApril 24, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O80197/the-eagles-nest-oil-painting-landseer-edwin-henry/
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