Dog art will get bidders biting
The dog will be celebrated in a summer sale at Bonhams Edinburgh, with a selection of canine-focused artworks from across the centuries.
An oil on canvas by William Henry Davis of Colonel Newport Charlett’s Favourite Greyhounds will lead The Dog Sale on July 24. The painting is being offered with an estimate of £50,000-80,000.
Such was the popularity of coursing (hunting game animals with greyhounds) in 18th-century England that, after the first coursing club was formed in 1776, the total number of clubs rose to 350 within less than a century to meet demand. One Colonel Newport Charlett of the Ashdown Park Club raced 20 greyhounds in four meetings between Spring 1830 and Autumn 1831, all to no success. This did not, however, discourage Newport Charlett from commissioning the preeminent animal painter of the time, William Henry Davis, of depicting him as a fashionable country gentleman riding alongside his favourite hounds. Davis went on to be appointed animal painter to William IV and Queen Victoria.
Leo Webster, Picture Specialist at Bonhams Scotland, commented: “The sale has an extraordinary selection of works featuring some of the most eminent animal artists of their time. The Dandie Dinmont returns once more with a painting by the English artist, John Emms and there is charming portrait of a Maltese seated for dinner, but it is the story of the Old English sheep dog, Rufford Ormonde that steals the show, not only a three-times trophy winner but a hero of his day too – saving a woman’s life in the 1800s.”
Champion of Record (Ch.) Rufford Ormonde, painted by Herbert St John Jones in 1906 in the portrait entitled, High Life estimated at £2,000-3,000, was sold to the American financier and investment banker, John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) of Morgan Stanley. At the time he was paying record prices for champion dogs in England. The old English sheep dog won his first C.C. (Challenge Certificate) at The Kennel Club Show of 1892, when he also won what is now the British Collie Club Challenge Trophy for the first time. He won this trophy twice more in 1894.
Famously Rufford Ormonde and another of Morgan’s dogs, Sefton Hero, saved a young woman from drowning in July,1897. Robert K. Armstrong, the Superintendent of Mr Morgan’s kennels, with his wife, baby and friend ran into trouble on their boat in the Hudson and were thrown into the river. The friend could not swim, and the noble dogs plunged to her rescue. Rufford Ormonde took hold of one arm with his teeth, and Sefton Hero, placed himself so that the woman rested squarely on his back. Working together they dragged her safely to shore.
A delightful collection of dogs painted by Reuben Ward Binks (1880-1950) jostle for attention in the sale from A family of West Highland Terriers, watercolour and gouache with an estimate of £1,200-1,800 to a portrait of Charles Alington’s F.T. Champion Labrador Retrievers and the Champion Stake winners, ‘Dazzle’ and ‘Flashy’ from 1921, with an estimate of £2,500-3,500. Alington was one of the founding members of the Labrador Retriever Club in 1916 and the two Labrador Retrievers depicted in this work, were two of the most famous Labrador Retrievers of their day.
Binks was recognised as the leading artist of canine portraiture, not only in the UK but abroad. He painted dogs for three generations of the British Royal Family, and among his patrons were four successive monarchs. He also spent many years in the Punjab painting for the Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, the ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala from 1900-1938 and paid several visits to the USA to fulfil commissions for prominent American families, including Geraldine R. Dodge, niece of the famous millionaire, John D. Rockefeller.
Also featured in the 261-lot sale is an endearing portrait of A Newfoundland off the English coast by Edmund Bristow with an estimate of £10,000-15,000. Bristow was an English animal, still life and subject painter (1787-1876). The son of a heraldic painter, he was patronised by Princess Elizabeth, the Duke of Clarence, and others from an early age. He had great sympathy with animals and was skilled at rendering their characteristic movements and expressions.
As well as paintings, the sale will include a number of Dog Canes from a late 19th/early 20th-century articulated gadget cane with a carved wood French bulldog, estimated at £250-350, to a 20th-century wood walking cane carved with the head of a Gun Dog with glass eyes, painted details and silver collar, Birmingham 1902, estimated at £200-300.
Other highlights in the sale include:
- John Emms (British,1843-1912), Dandie Dinmonts and a magpie, oil on canvas. Estimate: £6,000-8,000.
- Wright Barker (British, 1863-1941) Clumber Spaniels in a woodland of silver birch (unframed), oil on canvas. Estimate: £5,000-7,000.
- Charles Van den Eycken (Belgian, 1859-1923) Bon appetite – A Maltese at the dinner table, oil on panel. Estimate: £4,000-6,000.