portrait of the lion tamer...

 I visited the Yale Center for British Art yesterday and, though taken with many paintings, the Constable cloud studies, the Reynolds portraits, I was particularly intrigued by this image.  Painted by Edward Henry Landseer in 1847, Portrait of Mr. Van Amburgh as He Appeared with His Animals at the London Theatre shows the celebrated lion tamer dressed as a Roman gladiatior with the bearing of an emperor subjugating his menagerie of wild cats.  And don't they look fierce?  Well, one of them does, a tiger mad with blood-lust and with one eye on you, the viewer, safe from savage feline fangs and the brutal treatment of Mr Van Armburgh whose cat act was effectively shut down after accusations that the famous man cruelly abused his animals. 

So look closely at the other cats whose features reveal a learned complacency, a wariness, a sense of hopelessness and resignation. 

Although Isaac Van Amburgh dramatized the incredible danger he faced, the truth reveals that it was the cats who faced far greater peril.  Underlying his performance was a message that held great appeal at the time: Man Dominating Nature, which Van Amburgh achieved by beating his animals with a crowbar.  An earlier Landseer portrait of Van Amburgh successfully conveys a somewhat different sentiment with its Peaceable Kingdom overtones.

It's quite a valid comparison.  This is one of many versions of this theme painted by Edward Hicks.
When he was vilified for his cruelty, Van Amburgh turned to the Bible: "Didn't God say in Genesis 1:26 that men should have dominion over every animal on the Earth?"   To emphasize his point he resorted to more ambitious theatrics, acting out Biblical scenes and dragging a lamb into the cage to "lie down" with the lions.   In 1838, the New York Daily Mirror had this to say about Mr. Van Amburgh's melodramatics:
“His fearless acts of placing his bare arm moist with blood, in the lion’s mouth and thrusting his head into the distended jaws of the tiger—the playful tenderness of the lion and the tiger toward the infant and the pet lamb, who are put into the same cage with them—are all attended with the most thrilling and dramatic interest.”

Van Amburgh later took his act to England where his performance so captivated Queen Victoria that she commissioned Landseer to paint the portrait of him in performance with the cats.  The painting at Yale was purportedly commissioned by the Duke of Wellington. 

Well, actually, no, it's not Van Armburgh's last appearance. His legacy has been curiously memoralized by an object of modern design by London based designer Sam Johnson who creates some quite striking and thoughtful products and has chosen to memorialize Mr. Armburgh with a colorful stool.    I confess to a feeling of dismay.  Knowing what I now know about Mr. Van Armburgh's savage treatment of cats, it would not occur to me to champion his cause with what looks like a nicely designed thing, but there you go.