Two girls crying over a dead lamb. Etching with line engraving by T. Brown after H. Campotosto.

The dead lamb is lying outside a barn in the straw. "'The spring' by H. Campotosto--a young girl giving drink to another by a wayside spring--is one of the sweetest of the works of this always pleasant artist. 'The dead lamb' is another: a very touching picture of early nature with its earliest grief. The painter cannot fail to be in high favour with all who desire pleasure from art, who love the true and the natural, and prefer enjoyment to astonishment. His themes are always well chosen; but a prettier model would be to his advantage"--The art journal, 1872, vol. 34, p. 118

"Selected pictures. From the picture in the collection of George Fox Esq., Harefield, Alderley. The dead lamb. H. Campotosto, painter. T. Browne, engraver. The artist who places on his canvas a subject calculated to awaken feelings of pain deprives the spectator of much, if not all, of the pleasure to be derived from its contemptation. No excellence of painting can compensate for the absence of what would, at least, afford mental gratification ; on the contrary, the nearer the artist approaches the truth of nature in representing a story of sorrow, the more sure is he to call forth a corresponding feeling as we look at his work. It is not a mere sentimentalism which products this result, but the ordinary instinct of our natural constitution, that constrains most of us to turn aside fron misery and wretchedness of every kind, especially when we can offer no relief. Apart limit these consideration., the picture of 'The dead lamb' cannot but be acceptable. The touching incident is depicted with much real pathos and very considerable artistic skill. These poor children, paying a visit to an outhouse, find their pet lifeless at its threshold; no wonder, then, that tears should flow at a sight so unwelcome and so distressing to the young heart. A veterinary surgeon of a cavalry regiment, who had passed through many a long campaign, once remarked to us: "I have often seen my friends and companions falling around me on the field of battle, and yet somehow or other I could never shed a tear ; but when I lost a favourite dog, which had for years followed me in my wanderings, it was some time ere I could speak of him without a faltering voice and a moist eye." Yet there was no unmanliness here. This picture presents a well-arranged composition, combined with good drawing and an easy, unaffected arrangement of the figures. It is painted throughout with great delicacy, and is luminous in colour."--The art journal, 1872, vol. 34, p. 156

[London] : [Virtue & Co.], [1872]

1 print : etching, with line engraving ; image 24.5 x 19 cm

The dead lamb. From the picture in the collection of George Fox, Esq. Harefield, Alderley. H. Campotosto pinxt. T. Brown sculpt.

Wellcome Collection 42300i