The Sporting Dog

This feature focuses on breeds that all have their beginnings in what can loosely be described as sport with dogs — from hunting various game to baiting.

Baiting was one of the cruellest of all the sports, pitting one dog, often of Bulldog type, against a tethered, totally mismatched animal, from lions and bears down. One of the most popular, and one that attracted large crowds, was bull baiting, for there was never any shortage of bulls. A strong metal ring was secured into the ground to tether the bull; hence so many towns and villages have an area known to this day as the Bull Ring. In a very few instances the ring can still be seen.

A prize many collectors of Bulldog art and artifacts aim for is the Staffordshire pottery bull-baiting group. The plaques on the base read “Bull Beating” (could this be a telling misspelling of bull baiting?) and “Now Captain Lad” (presumably the man’s encouraging words to his prize bull). There are variations, and this one has two dogs.

This group was offered for sale by Duke’s of Dorchester with an estimate of £50-100, taking into account some damage. Those in the know look out for Obadiah Sherratt examples, and the market seemed to think this was one, with the hammer finally falling at £4,500. Although Sherratt examples are the “Holy Grail,” little is known about the man who created them, but it was the first Staffordshire pottery figure to own Sherratt attribution.

The porcelain loving cup was also made in the Staffordshire Potteries. It is hand-painted with a Beagle standing over a dead hare, titled “Drummer” in gilt around the foot with a gilt monogram for the artist, and dated 1849 within a frame of hops and barley. It was sold by Toovey’s auction for £180.

Many pictures that show the more brutal side of hunting with dogs are from pictures by artists who have their roots in the Low Countries in the 17th Century. One such artist was Paul de Vos, a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in compositions of animals and hunting scenes and who worked for an elite clientele. He regularly collaborated with leading Antwerp painters such as Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens.

Nigel Ward auctions recently sold the contents of Goytre Hall near Abergavenny in Wales, home of Lord Peter Wynford Innes Rees. Included was a large oil after Paul de Vos of a wild boar held at bay by a pack of large hounds; one hound has been gored in the chest and dripping in blood, and a second hound has been tossed to the ground. It sold for £1,600.

A similar large canvas after de Vos — painted large for impact and to fill walls in baronial homes — hangs in Plas Newydd on the Island of Anglesey, ancestral home of the Marquesses of Anglesey. This one is even more brutal, showing two bears defending themselves against a large pack of large hounds, many hounds already having been floored by the bears and others the bears are mauling.

John Rolfe auctions are one of the newer auction houses founded as recently as 2022 and situated in Tetbury in the Cotswolds, an area regarded by many as one of the most picturesque parts of England. It is also an area with strong sporting connections, being home to some of the most historic and important Foxhound packs in England.

Rolfe’s latest auction had a number of lots with hunting connections, one being an Art Deco onyx pin tray with a cold-painted bronze Foxhound mounted on one side that sold for £110. Although there was no signature indicating the hound’s origin, by its quality it could have originated in Austria, home of the cold-painted bronzes and where thousands were manufactured.

Also sold by Rolfe was a collection of five portrait studies of Fox Terriers/Hunt Terriers by John Emms. They had come to auction from a local Cotswold family that had them for many years.

Emms was one of the most important late 19th-Century/early 20th-Century dog artists, in the dog world remembered particularly for his portraits of terriers with a working background. He was born in Norfolk and in his early years as an artist worked as an assistant to the Victorian neoclassical painter Lord Frederick Leighton. During his time in London, Emms lived the life of a Bohemian.

The move to the New Forest introduced him to hunting in the area, and he soon developed a passion for the sport. Through this passion he found many clients who greatly influenced his subject matter. Today he is predominantly known to a wider public for his subjects centered on hunting: horses, hounds and terriers, particularly those with a sporting background or connection.

He exhibited at most of the major galleries, and his work is recognized by a generous application of paint and bold, loose brushstrokes. Toward the end of his life, he fell on hard times, exchanging paintings for alcohol with the proprietor of the Stag Inn at Lyndhurst.  

For reasons now not known, all five are unsigned, which may have accounted for lowish estimates of £600-1,000 each, but they were unquestionably from the hand of Emms. The dogs were three wire coated and two smooth, and three were inscribed with the dogs’ names. Three sold within estimate: the two smooths, “Charlie” and “Skipperking,” at £750 and £900, respectively, and one of a wire coated at £800.