Reclining Lion
Medium
Graphite with touches of white chalk, on cream wove paper
Dimensions
11.5 × 18.1 cm (4 9/16 × 7 3/16 in.)
Classification
graphite
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
114711
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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 Que...