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The Shepherd's Chief Mourner

Printmaker: Gibbon, Benjamin Phelps · 1802-1851 Primary artist: Landseer, Sir Edwin Henry RA HRSA · 1802-1873 Publisher: Moon, Sir Francis Graham · 1796-1871 Printer: McQueen

One of three works by Landseer with a shepherd theme to be engraved by Phelps; The Shepherd's Grave (1838), The Shepherd's Chief Mourner (1838) and The Highland Shepherd's Home (1846) and the best known.

Gibbon's print is based upon one of Landseer's most celebrated paintings which was exhibited to great acclaim at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 1837 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The simple subject of a sheep dog resting its head on the coffin of its master in a rustic interior was immensely popular. The influential art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) considered the work one of the ''most perfect poems...which modern times have seen.'' This single-sheet print, issued just a year after the painting's debut, is perhaps the best known, and one of several published examples. These range greatly in size and medium, and include wood-engravings as well as other mixed method prints published in the 1860s. Following Landseer's death the weekly newspaper ''Illustrated London News'' produced a double-page supplement in tribute to him on October 11, 1873 and chose this sentimental scene as the subject. (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/654399)

https://www.ourhenhouse.org/more-than-a-painting-the-old-shepherds-chief-mourner-and-the-seeds-of-early-animal-advocacy/

John Sheepshanks, to whom the present work is dedicated was the original owner of Landseer's original oil painting which he subsequently gifted to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 1857

A proof after letters. Vide BM 1850,0525.30 for an impression lacking the dedication and flanking verses

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