What did the Duchess get up to in her wood-and-turf hut?

There are many odd tales behind the origins of classic gastronomic dishes. Who would have believed that the old Ipswich bruiser, Cardinal Wolsey, was responsible for that perfect combination, strawberries and cream? No one had thought of serving them together before. There is an even more curious history of that admirable side dish, pommes duchesse. It was not invented by Talleyrand’s chef or a three-star maestro from the Michelin, but by that earthy, not to say peat-stained, painter Sir Edwin Landseer (1803–72). How so?

He came from a fairly humble background. His father was an engraver who campaigned vigorously (as any student of the Farington Diary will know) for those of his trade to be admitted as full members of the Royal Academy. Young Edwin was a prodigy, specialising in animals, brought to notice by that sad enthusiast Benjamin Robert Haydon. By 16 he was exhibiting at the RA, was elected an associate at the earliest possible age (24), and then a full member. From the first he was taken up by the landed aristocracy who loved his portraits of their dogs, horses and prize bulls. Their wives liked him too, for he was personable, witty, a superb mimic (of people, animals, machines and birds) and as Queen Victoria put it, ‘very good looking’.

In 1824 he visited the Highlands, and fell in love with its scenery (no one had ever painted it better: see his ‘Lake Scene: Effect of a Storm’ in the Tate), its way of life and above all its red deer. Among his patrons, and friends, was the 6th Duke of Bedford, one of the world’s richest men (and the father of Lord John ‘Reform Bill’ Russell). He also met the Duke’s second wife, Georgiana, and fell for her.