''A Jack in Office'' is an 1833

oil painting Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...

by the British

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

Edwin Landseer Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873) was an English painter and sculptor, well known for his paintings of animals – particularly horses, dogs, and stags. His best-known work is the lion sculptures at the base of Nelso ...

. The title is a reference to a slang term of the era for a pompous, petty official. It depicts the barrow of a salesman of dog meat who has temporary left it in an

alleyway An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane), or a path, walk, or av ...

guarded by a Jack Russell Terrier who faces down four other dogs who hope by trickery or force to get their hands on the meat.. The work was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1833 at

Somerset House Somerset House is a large neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building complex situated on the south side of the Strand, London, Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadran ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

along with another notable Landseer work ''

The Hunted Stag ''The Hunted Stag'' is an 1833 oil painting by the British artist Edwin Landseer. It shows a stag hunted by hounds in a mountain stream. It is the first in a series of works by Landseer featuring stags at bay. It is also known by the alternative t ...

''. It was enormously popular with the public. Today the painting is in the collection of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

South Kensington South Kensington is a district at the West End of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with the advent of the ra ...

having been acquired through the gift of the

art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

John Sheepshanks in 1857.https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O80668/a-jack-in-office-oil-painting-landseer-edwin-henry/

References

Bibliography

* Donald, Diana. ''Picturing Animals in Britain, 1750-1850''. Yale University Press, 2007. * Ormond, Richard. ''Sir Edwin Landseer''. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1981. 1833 paintings Paintings by Edwin Henry Landseer Genre paintings Oil on panel paintings Paintings of dogs Paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum {{1830s-painting-stub