The Lady Landseer

There are some artists who were so famous in their own lifetimes that I feel a bit of a fool writing about them.  With my normal subjects, I start scratching about, gather as many twigs of their lives together as I can, then attempt to make a narrative of it. However, with the occasional artist, almost completely overlooked these days, I open a cupboard and immediately get crushed by a deluge of information, pictures and biographical articles. All this leaves me wondering - what exactly is the process that leads to us forgetting a celebrity?  And does the gender of that celebrity play any part in their disappearance? Say hello to Miss Maud Earl...

Maud Earl, c.1904

I've wanted to write about Maud for ages now but every time I thought I'd found out everything, I just kept finding more. For context, I started writing this up in March!  The balancing act I have is not telling you absolutely everything (we'd be here forever and you'd get a bit bored) but just all the things that will coherently tell her story.  Let's have a go then, and also see if we can find out why Maud has slipped from our collective memory, before we obviously try and shove her back in. I'll start right at the beginning with Maud's dad, George Earl (1827-1908), a sportsman, dog fancier (I could have phrased that better) and talented artist...

Pug with a Freemason Collar (undated) George Earl

He was an early member of the Kennel Club of Great Britain and a very popular dog painter, although admittedly it was a crowded playing field. He found getting into the Royal Academy a little tricky, managing it finally in 1857 but it might be his subject matter that hindered him.  As those who did the Open University A102 will remember, there is a hierarchy of artistic subjects with history at the top and still life at the bottom. If he had put the pug in uniform and called him Nelson he might have done a bit better, but I digress. 

In 1862, George married Alice Rawlins, daughter of a coach builder, and a year later, on 26th March 1863, along came their daughter, Alice Maud, who became known as Maud to save confusion with her mother. Interestingly, there is a bit of a pause in the story as no siblings followed and  in 1870, Alice Snr died, aged only 31. For the 1871 census, Maud is living with her grandfather, which I found odd but it might have been because her father was off getting married again. Even more interestingly, wife no.2 was the sister of wife no.1.

For goodness sake, did the Don't Marry Your Wife's Sister's Marriage Act mean nothing?! I found the casualness of the remarriage to Frances Rawlins at Trinity Church in Marylebone astonishing, seeing as Holman Hunt lost friends over his marriage to Edith Waugh and John Collier had to scamper off to Norway to marry Ethel Huxley in 1889. There was nothing in the newspapers and George was a fairly well-known painter at this point so I am a bit baffled.  Either way, a veritable fountain of babies followed, providing Maud with siblings - Francis George (1872-1944), Thomas Percy (1874-1947), Hubert John (1876-1878), Edith Margaret (1878-1949), Hilda Florence (1880-1962) and finally Sydney Beaumont (1881-1946).  I am impressed that, apart from poor Hubert, the rest made it to the 1940s and Hilda made it to a very impressive 1962.

Red Deer: Early Morning (1884)

By 1881, the newly reformed Earl family were living at 21 Newman Street in a household that included Grampy Coach Maker and three servants (you know I'm servant obsessed).  Although the census didn't give much away, I'm guessing that Maud was studying art because in 1884 she made her Royal Academy debut with Red Deer: Early Morning which the Banffshire Journal described as 'a good Highland landscape.' This was followed by her first RA dog picture in 1886, Old Benchers...

Old Benchers (1886)

I was especially grateful to the Field magazine for a description of this one as I didn't have a clue what I was looking for.  They reported that they had never seen a liver and white foxhound they didn't like and this extended to Maud's picture of foxhounds on their benches. They wondered if Maud had visited the Surrey Kennels for her models, but then complained that the picture had been 'skied'...

A Private View at the Royal Academy 1881 (1883) William Powell Frith

Now, we will hear this word a lot (spoiler alert), and it means that the picture is hung up at the top as opposed to 'on the line' or eye-level (which is buy-level).  As you can see from the famous Frith image of the RA, the paintings go right up the wall in order to fit in as many as possible (a custom I am delighted we don't do now as it is ridiculous).  It is interesting that in 1887, when Maud's painting In the Drifts was hung sky-high again, the Queen magazine pondered that, had Maud been an Academician, it would have been hung on the line. Being a woman, that wasn't even an option (Laura Knight being the first one in 1936, Annie Swynnerton being an Associate in 1922) so there is no question that being a woman was a disadvantage.  Even John Bull, not exactly the most feminist of publications, announced that Maud's painting being skied was a travesty - 'if we had not seen it before we should not have known that it is the finest study of animals in the exhibition.'

In the Drift (1887)

By the 1891 census, Maud was living in Little Burgh in Banstead, where the Asda petrol station stands now, according to this handy history (which mentions George but not Maud). I keep forgetting how much younger her siblings were, but although Maud was 28 in 1891, her nearest sibling, Frances, was only 18.  Notably, in the same census, staying with the Earl family was Lilian C. Smythe, the same age as Maud, and who moved with Maud to Bloomfield Studios, Bloomfield Place in Pimlico somewhen before 1895. 

A Cry for Help (1895)

1895 saw Maud's return to the Royal Academy and her inclusion in the illustrations booklet, which is quite a notable thing (if you remember this post). I found the gap between her 1887 painting and 1895 to be unexpectedly sizable but she did exhibit in the meantime in places such as the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colour's exhibition 'Royal Female School of Art' in 1893.  The Graphic viewed Maud's entry Waiting for Orders to be one of the most important pictures on the wall. 

The Dog of War (1896)

1896's RA saw an interesting image entitled The Dog of War, showing a shepherd dog trained by the German army to locate wounded soldiers, just as he has found this one by the side of a gun carriage. It is possible to see a bit of a pattern forming in Maud's work, as she obviously liked a dog in a bit of a perilous situation, illustrated again in 1897 with Farthest North: The End of the Expedition...

Farthest North: The End of the Expedition (1897)

This painting came with a quote from Kipling to heighten the drama of it all as our poor husky is left all alone in the snowy wasteland. I hope he has eaten the explorers. Infuriatingly, I can't find an image for 1898's The Last of the Expedition, because the description given by the Queen  magazine is this - 'an Esquimaux harnessed to his dead companion in a sleigh in dismal Northern regions is a most suggestive story of starvation and disaster.'  Well, that sounds awfully like 1897's RA entry, so I was wondering if you were allowed to send a painting in more than once or if she just loved painting doomed explorers and 'Esquimaux' dogs. 

Dogs of Death (1900)

The new century saw Maud's most intriguing work to date, Dogs of Death, which caused a sensation at the RA.  The Echo called it 'really dramatic' - 'they pass through the gloomy forest like shadows of evil and you feel them both awesome and uncanny.'  The picture depicts a Scandinavian legend of how these mystical dogs would chase the human souls through a celestial forest.  The Field called the picture 'weird looking' but admired the samoyedes - 'Their character and coats are well painted, and the attitude of the animals, some of which are baying, has been carefully studied; but they seem too fat and well nourished for animals of the kind.' Let's not fat-shame the Dogs of Death...

On Dian's Day (1901)

Maud's last RA outing was On Dian's Day, explained in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News with a quote from the RA catalogue - 'The legend runs that on the day sacred to Diana, her hounds - the rough Cretans and slender Laconians - sought her forest shrine (adorned with her flowers, the poppy and dittany) to pay their homage.' In the 1901 census, Lillian Smythe and Maud were living in Bloomfield Studios in Belgravia, very nice indeed.  I'm not in the business of outing people, but a fair number of the lady artists I research remain single and alone (if they don't shack up with their equally spinster sisters), so I'm glad that Maud and Lillian found a meeting of minds as Lillian seems to have done some interesting work. In a 1898 edition of the Nursing Record, there is an advert for a set of etchings Lillian had done of various hospitals which you could buy for a guinea (signed on vellum, thank you very much). She also seems to have produced a book on the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau and, more relevantly, a book on Pekingese dogs.  I wonder if that is how the pair met? Anyway, I digress.

1901 was the year that Maud hit the big time as this photograph from a lengthy article in The Sketch attests. The fluff piece praised how resourceful and skilful Maud was, and how gently quirky she could be, taking tea with her furry models and going off on walks with them so that they were used to her and would behave in the studio.  This was often a difficult task as they were so easily distracted and even the most flighty human model was not known to spring up and chase a postman.  She said that she would sometimes paint a dog to please its owner, but sometimes to please herself and it was generally acknowledged that this 'Lady Landseer' had a special way with canines. Their chief praise was due to Maud's growing reputation with royal dogs, having painted the new King's pug, the Duke of Leeds' greyhounds and everything else from mongrels to pedigrees, all with the same care and attention.  The piece also praised her intellectual pursuit of the subject, her studies of the skeleton and skin and her ability to name every bone in a dog's anatomy. Interestingly, the piece ends in a slightly cryptic manner.  After saying that Maud holds 'decided and highly illuminating views on art and artists,' the reporter bemoans that they lost the opportunity to record them 'by incautiously displaying my notebook. Miss Earl's spontaneous talk may be graven on the tablets of the mind, but must not be recorded in black and white.' What on earth does that mean?! I like to think that Maud lists the members of the Royal Academy who she could take in a fight but then adds 'yeah, but don't write that down, I want it to come as a surprise!'

Poodles and Cards (undated)

Maud continued to be a royal favourite, also painting the King's fox terrier Caesar in 1905 and holding many solo exhibitions of her work that appealed to not only the artistic crowds but also the hunting-shooting-fishing set, with prints of her work readily available for the public to buy. By 1911, she was living alone at 8 Elm Tree Road, Marylebone, which appears to back onto the Lords Cricket Ground. She had a butler and a housekeeper, a married couple, looking after her, which gives you an idea of her wealth, but thing were about to take an interesting turn. By 1916, Maud had packed up and moved to America.  In some accounts, she left after feeling that the world she had loved had been ruined by the war, but it could have been that she felt no ties to London anymore and so wanted to pursue a new artistic scene, especially if her style of art was falling from fashion (although I think the link between fashion and money is somewhat overstated, as we have seen in the case of J W Godward). Anyway, Maud left Liverpool for New York on the ship, the Lapland, in October of 1916 and apart from some visits back occasionally, lived out the rest of her life on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Borzoi Heads (undated)

I love her pictures on the plain backgrounds as they remind me of Whistlejacket (1762). Maud continued to pop up in the newspapers, most notably when she illustrated John Galsworthy's book on his spaniel, Chris.  In a way, I wonder if her lifelike and expressive portraits of animals were immune to 'high' art judgements, so didn't suffer from being unfashionable as they were almost photographic.  The Illustrated London News showed Maud's studio on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1923, with her bird panels in a Chinese style, together with a gold panel painted for Miss Theodora Wilbur of her Pekingese and two Japanese spaniels. Also featured was a mural from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlantic City from the 'Cockatoo Room'. Her murals, in the form of decorative panels became known as 'Maud Earl panels' and she went on to produce many others, including a gold one of Miss Elsie de Wolfe's Pekingese. I wonder therefore if America gave Maud the chance to find female patrons with money and dogs, especially decorative lap dogs which she seems to have really enjoyed painting. What is apparent is that in 1910, Maud had over 200 mentions in the newspapers, but by the 1920s, she is lucky to have reached 100 mentions for the entire decade. That said, she was still known to the public and in 1943, when she died in New York, her death was noted in the newspapers, although only in one sparce line.  It was the middle of the war, so I'm guessing people had other priorities. She died at 23 East 74th Street in Manhattan on 7th July 1943, leaving only £23 in her probate in England (I'm guessing she had more money in America), and is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Westchester County. Many thanks to Wikipedia for this image of her grave...

So, can we blame her relocation for her subsequent anonymity? There is a big slice of that, as the newspaper reports attest, her fame declining sharply from 1910 to 1920, but I think the act of forgetting Miss Maud Earl happened the moment no major national collections bothered to buy her works.  There are 6 pieces on ArtUK  and, forgive me, none of them are her really important pieces.  It could be that many of them are in private hands still, which is always an obstacle to a museum holding or even thinking of a retrospective.  It could also be her subject matter - as I said above dogs are not seen as the highest level of art (my apology to all dogs reading this) and so her work, although glorious, is not valued in the same way as even that of horses.  I likened her borzoi picture to Whistlejacket, a mainstay of the National Gallery's collection, yet where is Maud? Reading the absolute overabundance of information on how awesome Maud Earl was, it seems frankly criminal that she is not in the narrative of British art, especially as she reflected that very human quality, our love of dogs. Could you argue she would have been more famous now if she had been a man? Not sure as Briton Riviere is hardly a household name, but she is the 'Lady Landseer' (who is definitely still a household name) so is it because she was a woman? I hate to fall back on it but yes, probably that doesn't help, not to mention that she left and died abroad in the middle of a war. You know I'm going to call for a retrospective immediately as I don't want the Victorians judging us for forgetting one of the most interesting animal artists our country has ever produced.