Tags: Robert Austin engraving plate print animals design farms/domestic animals leisure portraits TOP 100 1.PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST Thirty Royal Academicians
Provenance: The Artist's Estate; Private collection
Literature: Llewellyn, Sacha, and Paul Liss. Portrait of an Artist. Liss Llewellyn, 2021, p.151.
Ling was the name of the artist's Dalmatian, named after the family's home, Lingard House, in Chiswick. The engraving, produced in 1936, shows Ling in five different states of repose combined into a decorate cartouche.
It is generally acknowledged that Austin was one of the greatest exponents of line engraving of the Twentieth century. Campbell Dodgson, keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, who compiled the standard reference work on Austins' work, compared his work to that of Durer noting that Austin had 'more than a touch of that master in him' (Robert Austin, Twenty-One, 1930 Gallery).
