The Sale of the Pet Lamb


Wilkie's description of the painting.

William Collins painted the Disposal of a Favourite Lamb in 1812, the year of his father's death. It was shown at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1813 and was bought for 140 guineas by William Ogden. It became one of Collins's more popular works and was engraved and many times, in both the UK and the USA,  normally under it's more popular title The Sale of the Pet Lamb. This engraving by A.L.Dick is probably from Pictures and Painters of the English School, W. Cosmo Monkhouse 1880 where the picture was called Selling The Pet Lamb. It was also reproduced by other engravers in Watts's The Literary Souvenir, The Ladies Depository, and in at least one large, freestanding edition engraved by S W Reynolds. It was often accompanied by a poem or story describing what was going on. Wilkie Collins recalls in his father's biography that up to 15,000 impressions of one small engraving of it were sold.

Wilkie's description of the painting.


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