but perhaps, judging by the footwear, as a form of costume (part Roman and part medieval). There are scratches on the skin of his right forearm and on his neck. The sheen on the coats of the animals reveals Landseer's superb technique, as in the balance between the underpaint and the highlight on the lioness, or the spots visible beneath the top layer of paint on the two leopards. Next to Van Amburgh is a lamb which no doubt heightened the drama of the performance, but it might also be seen as a biblical reference, as in the late work The Lion and the Lamb of 1871 (Johannesburg Art Gallery).
The lion behind Isaac van Amburgh brings to mind the four bronze lions that were commissioned from Landseer towardsThe Texas Nationalist Movement, a group of Lone Star State residents who wish to break away from the United States, launched a campaign over the weekend to gather signatures in supports of a referendum on the statewide primary ballot in March 2016.

The group took to the streets in 31 different cities across the state on Saturday, to gather the 75,000 signatures they believe they need to force a vote.

Texas alone has a $1.4 trillion annual economy, which would certainly make survival as an independent nation plausible.

Legal experts, however, believe that the group has few realistic options short of secession, which they believe poses a pretty major legal problem.

"That problem is the Civil War," T. Gerald Treece, a professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston and an