Beyond Expectations
There are many auction “sleepers” still out there waiting to be discovered, which on the day — and often after a protracted bidding battle — go for dozens of times more than what was expected. Although not “sleepers” within the full meaning, those I feature (possibly with one exception) all went way beyond expectation.
Clevedon Auctions sold a group made up of four models of Greyhounds and one Whippet offered with the “come and get me” expectation of £40-60. But after a bidding tussle, the gavel finally fell at £2,200 — 35 times the top estimate. At least two people knew something not obvious to most of us: The lying Greyhound was made by Sylvac, the three standing Greyhounds and the Whippet by Beswick. The Greyhound was modelled on “Jovial Roger” (but with an eye on commercialism, Bewick produced it in a variety of colors), and the Whippet was modelled on “Wingedfoot Marksman of Allways,” at one time the breed Challenge Certificate record holder and top sire in the breed for many years. Both Beswick models were designed by Arthur Gredington, arguably the most famous Beswick sculptor.
One of the most unusual models of a dog was the rare 18th-Century folk-art toasting fork sold by Bonhams for £1,400 against a guide of £700-1,000. On the face of it, the dog appears to be banging its head against a wall, but in fact is holding in its mouth a rectangular metal sheet with six sharp toasting hooks. These canine-inspired objects were popular in the north of England and would have been used to toast food such as kippers. Carved in yew, the dog is in the form of a turnspit dog — an extinct small breed bred to run on a wheel that turned the roasting spit.
The chance of such a folk-art piece appearing at auction in the future is remote, but Black Forest carvings appear regularly and are always welcome by the market. Universally referred to as “Black Forest,” virtually all these carvings were done in Switzerland, the tradition going back to 1816. Originally they were simple wooden objects specifically for tourists sold by the Giessbach Falls, an attraction close to Brienz. By the middle years of the century what had started out as “folk art” had been developed by some of the more skilled carvers into art of great merit.
The carved group of a bitch still obviously nursing her three puppies shows what a high standard of work was being achieved by the finest carvers. The group was sold by Canterbury Auctions for £5,600 against a top estimate of £1,200. It is illustrated as plate 106 in “Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest” (1999) by Jay Arenski, Simon Daniels and Michael Daniels.
George Earl was the head of a dynasty of painters of which his daughter, Maud, is the best known. George is remembered primarily for his “The Field Trial Meeting,” which depicts a mythical field trial in Bala, North Wales, and a series of portrait head studies of dogs entitled “Champion Dogs of England.” A prolific artist, his work appears regularly at auction.
One of his larger works, two Pointers in a mountainous landscape with a sportsman in the distance, was offered for sale by Tremont Auctions of Sudbury, Massachusetts with expectations of between $3,000-5,000, but sold for $12,000. The painting had been the property of William Lort, a keen sportsman with estates in Warwickshire and Bangor, North Wales, and was sold with an illuminated book and a silver tureen presented to Lort for his services as a judge of horses and dog and his breeding of hunting dogs.
Next to the horse, the Greyhound is the animal most frequently seen in 19th-Century sporting pictures. Coursing drew a strong following, with the Waterloo Cup attracting one of the largest crowds of any sporting event in the 19th Century. Even work by lesser-known artists of lesser-known dogs always readily finds a market.
Such was the case with a painting by James Armstrong of the coursing bitch “Gallant Foe,” sold by Cleveland Auctions for a double estimate of £1,100. One cannot deny that the picture was well composed, the extensive landscape and sky adding to its decorative appeal. The dog’s claim to fame was as the dam of “Princess Dagmar,” winner of the Waterloo Cup in 1881, and the granddam of “Fullerton,” one of the most famous coursing Greyhounds of all time.
Walter Hunt began painting at the age of 13 and became one of the pre-eminent painters of sporting and pastoral scenes of the Victorian era. The rise of the gentleman farmer at the end of the 19th Century led to an increase in commissioned animal portraits and pastoral scenes. His picture of the Otterhound pack with the master in a rugged upland landscape shows Hunt at his best. Titled “The Find,” it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888, one of several pictures of otter hunting exhibited by Hunt at the Academy. It sold in Bonhams’ last Dog Sale for three times its estimate at £20,486.
The head study of the Chow Chow sold in a Crufts auction for £1,100, double the top estimate. The dog is Mrs. Mannooch’s “Ch. Choonam Hung Kwong,” the first dog from the Utility Group to go Best in Show at Crufts, which he did in 1936. He had a meteoric career and was only beaten once in the breed. He won more BIS awards at championship shows that any other Chow until the 1970s and amassed a total of 44 Challenge Certificates.
It was painted by the amateur Dutch artist George Krebs, a tobacconist by profession but also a well-known breeder of Fox Terriers and all-round judge in his native Netherlands. It was commissioned by Henk and Kitty van de Waow of the world-famous “Van Mongolie” Chow kennel in the Netherlands. The picture was done from a photograph, possibly one by Thomas Fall, for the dog’s excessive ruff is as shown in Fall photographs and not so much in those by other photographers.