The Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His Tribe

The Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His Tribe

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A portrait of Quiz, a Maltese terrier that belonged to Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent. This print is based on a painting that the queen commissioned from Landseer the year that she ascended the throne, as a birthday present for her mother. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840 and remains in the Royal Collection. The small white, long haired dog with a bell on his collar, sits on a table and rests one paw on the nose of a Newfoundland that rests its chin on the table. In front of the two are artist's tools, including a porte-crayon, brushes, pencils, a stump and quill pen, and a lump of bread intended as an eraser, that a mouse feasts upon.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His TribeThe Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His TribeThe Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His TribeThe Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His TribeThe Lion-Dog of Malta—The Last of His Tribe

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.