Fri, 12/02/2022 - 4:33pm

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder

As any dealer in dog art will tell you, when there is no indication of size or color, there are certain pieces where it is best to leave the beholder of the item to decide on the breed – for example, is it a Greyhound, Whippet or Italian Greyhound?

 

 

One example of this is the brass inkwell sold by Halls Fine Art for a below estimate £70. When I was trading, I sold this piece as all three breeds. A pottery inkwell is inside a globe that rests on the backs of three sitting dogs mounted on a circular base. It is part of a desk-set garniture that includes a pen tray and letter opener.

 

 

A popular subject for artists working in a variety of mediums, usually bronze, was a recumbent Mastiff. This particular 20th-Century pair made from composition marble sold for just £25 by Lodge and Thomas.

 

 

Alfred Dubucand was a member of the 19th-Century French animalier school, the “father” of which was Antoine-Louis Barye, born in 1795. Like many of his contemporaries, Dubucand modelled small groups of animals. This group of a couple of Bloodhounds on the scent, signed and mounted on a naturalistic oval plinth, sold by Chorleys for £160. It is typical of the work being produced by many of the animaliers in the second half of the 19th Century.

 

 

Staying in France but moving forward to the years between the two Great Wars is the bronze Pointer by Richard Fath. Fath was multi-talented and until comparatively recently was little known outside his native France, and I’m pleased to say I played no small part in introducing his work to a much wider audience. On odd occasions when his work appeared at auction previously, Fath was at times credited as being American.

He produced models in bronze and clay, designed medallions and plaques, painted in oils and created lithographs, but is best known for his bronzes, of which this Pointer had a price tag of £800.

Basil Matthews started manufacturing earthenware figures of animals at The Studio, Wolverhampton, in 1946, and for the next 40 years, until his sudden death, produced small whimsical figures.

His models were never complex; nearly all were given staring eyes, and they sat on bases usually decorated with flowers. Each was hand painted, so there was an element of uniqueness about each one. Matthews’ principal outlet was Zellis, then in the Burlington Arcade, just off Piccadilly in central London. They always displayed them along the front of the window to attract tourists, who bought them in large quantities as the perfect little gift that represented quintessential English charm.

Charming as they may have been, the late Queen is reputed to have declined his offer to model her Corgis. It is doubtful whether he would have captured their physical likeness anyway, but their character maybe.

 

 

In the latter years the studio turned its attention to having models cast in bronze, but, unlike the pottery figures, the nature of the material dictated that they lacked the whimsical charm. When sold this recumbent Afghan had a price tag of £150.

When attributing a breed to a piece of art created in earlier times, one has to consider if that breed existed then, and if so, what did it look like. I have seen in auction catalogs and elsewhere a breed attribution given to a work when that breed was not even thought of at the time.

The late canine bibliophile, Clarice Waud, was always incensed when she saw the subject in 19th-Century paintings described as a “Cavalier King Charles Spaniel” when it was not until the 1920s that a breed of that name was created.

 

 

The popular bronze French animalier group by Prosper Lecourtier of a powerful dog chained to a post, straining to attack, was cast in a number of sizes from the 1870s. A similar version was also modelled by Charles Valton. 

It immortalizes what we today would consider the bad side of how dogs were treated by humans in times past. Described variously as a Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Boxer, et al, it is undoubtedly a large powerful dog with docked tail and cropped ear. It was of a type bred for entertainment, either pitched to fight against its fellow creatures, or baited against another animal of anything up to the size of a bear. This particular piece is by Lecourtier and was sold by Hansons for a mid-estimate £440.

 

 

Known affectionately as a “Barker” or “Growler,” this French Bulldog toy was sold by auction house Lodge and Thomas for an above estimate £680. It was made of papier mâché and felt, with glass eyes, a nodding head and a lead-operated growl mechanism on wooden casters. It was catalogued as early 20th Century in the manner of Roullet and Decamps, a French toy-manufacturing company that specialized in automata.

These were toys for the children of wealthy parents who would promenade along the French Riviera. As the dog was pulled along, it would nod its head and growl. They were at one time the Holy Grail for collectors, with four-figure sums not unheard of, but in recent years they have appeared at auction more frequently. There was a court case a few years ago when an auction house sold one as “late 19th Century” when it was proven by the purchaser to have been much more recent in manufacture and made in the Far East.

 

 

While the expression of the French Bulldog could be described as having appeal, I make no apology for suggesting that the appeal in the “English” Bulldog counterpart’s expression rests in its ugliness. Possibly of French origin and perhaps earlier than the French Bulldog, it was sold by Hansons in their toy sale and found someone to love it for £320, the lower end of its estimate.

 

 

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