SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A. 63 



soon ripened into intimacy, and Landseer gradually 

 acquired the habit of consulting Mr. Bell on matters 

 of business. "He was always very delicate and 

 shy," Lord Tankerville writes me, "as to the ques- 

 tion of money for his pictures, and got very, very 

 insufificient prices for his earlier works. His friend 

 Bell took it in hand and got him better prices — 

 thousands instead of fifties and hundreds." Mr. 

 Frederick Stephens in his Sir Edivin Landseer 

 (Great Artists Series, 1880) says that ten guineas 

 was the sum he was accustomed to receive for a- 

 picture in 18 18. Mr. Stephens also tells us that 

 " John Landseer managed his son's affairs, settled 

 the prices of his pictures, received the money, and 

 treated Edwin in his twenty-second year as he had 

 done when he was twelve years old." 



Pictures, now the property of the nation, represent 

 Landseer's gratitude to Mr. Jacob Bell for his ser- 

 vices. It was this gentleman who took him for 

 a tour on the Continent in 1840 when his health 

 failed under distressing circumstances, and it be- 

 came necessary for him to seek change of scene 

 for a few months. When, in the year 1859, Mr. 

 Bell died at the early age of 49, his mantle as 

 business adviser to Landseer fell upon his friend 

 and partner Mr. Thomas Hyde Hills. Mr. Hills, 

 when a boy just out of his apprenticeship, came 

 as a junior assistant to Mr. John Bell ; his 



