My heart is in the Highlands

Edwin Landseer’s visit to the Duchess of Bedford’s retreat in Badenoch sparked a passion for the Highlands that led to his best work and created a romantic vision of Scotland, finds Mary Miers

- Mary Miers

ONE morning in 1833, when staying at Invereshie, Lord Ossulston set off stalking with ‘the old forester Charlie Mackintosh, who in his early days had been a poacher of the first order’. On viewing a herd of deer, they heard a sudden crack of rifle fire. ‘It’ll be a poacher,’ said Mackintosh and they hid behind a knoll to watch, ready to pounce on their victim as he was busy gralloching his quarry. This he did ‘with great quickness and dexterity, not omitting to wash the tallow and other treasures carefully in the burn... He next let the head hang over, so as to display the horns, and then, squatting down on a stone opposite, took out of his pocket what I thought would be his pipe or whisky flask; but it was a sketch-book!... Seeing that we had mistaken our man, I came out into the open, and then found myself face to face with my friend of many years to come—Landseer. He was staying with the Duke and Duchess of Bedford in their little settlement of wooden houses on the other side of the Fishie’.

Edwin Landseer had first got to know the Bedfords in his late teens and became a regular visitor to Woburn Abbey, sketching their children and dogs and joining in amateur theatricals. It was the start of an intimate friendship that would have a huge impact on his personal and professional life. He would go on to become the pre-eminent Victorian animal painter and, through his successful prints, a household name. Scotland gave the setting for many of his most significant works and he owed his discovery of Highland romanticism to the Bedfords, who also introduced him to a new circle of patrons and friends.