Auction Highlights
There cannot have been too many occasions over the years when I have been able to feature a seven-figure lot, and the one sold by Sotheby’s is one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable of all dog paintings.
It was painted by the Liverpool-born George Stubbs (1724-1806), one of the most important artists of his generation who was entirely self-taught. His greatest skill was in painting animals, perhaps influenced by his love and study of anatomy. The 18th Century saw the rise in the importance of dogs in British culture due to the growing popularity of field sports and in particular shooting.
The picture (see image above) was billed as “the earliest and one of the most recognizable of all the artist’s depictions of dogs.” Dating from circa 1766-68, “The Spanish Pointer” offered was one of two versions, a virtually identical one being in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich. The Sotheby’s picture was purchased from the artist, or perhaps commissioned by the publisher Thomas Bradford, and served as the basis for a print engraved by William Woollett and released in 1768. It is from these prints and subsequent copies that the picture has become so universally known.
The painting first sold at auction in 1802, when it made £11 and was bought by General Sir Eyre Coote. Much of the painting’s recent provenance has been in America. In 1972 it was sold by Sotheby’s in the estate sale of the late Eben Beers Knowlton of Lakeville, Connecticut, selling for £30,000 hammer. This time it came to auction by descent from a private collection in Philadelphia and sold mid-estimate for an eye-watering £1.8m including premium.
As a painter of dogs, Stubbs is best remembered today for his hounds of the chase, Greyhounds, Pointers and Spaniels, both working and as companion dogs. A second painting by Stubbs was sold by Sloane Street Auctions. It was a portrait of a black-and-white Toy Spaniel standing on a piece of raised ground with a wooded and mountainous landscape beyond. Painted circa 1770, its provenance included the leading London dealers Ackermann and Sons and Lord Rootes, British Motor manufacturer and founder of the global Rootes Group. It sold within estimate for £58,000 hammer.
Not in the same league as Stubbs, but the 19th Century saw the arrival upon the scene of another artist who would further establish the importance of dogs in art and in particular purebred-dog portraiture, helped, no doubt, by the patronage of Queen Victoria. That artist is Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), the painter and sculptor who is best remembered for his horses and stags as well as dogs. His painting of the white-and-black Newfoundland resting on a quay, “A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society,” is arguably the most iconic dog painting of the 19th Century.
In their “Autumn Sale,” Dukes sold one of Landseer’s earliest paintings, completed when he was just 16 years old. “The Cat Disturbed” features a white terrier and a cat facing off in a stable or barn, possibly regarding a rat caught in the trap that is lower right in the picture. It was exhibited in the “Art Treasures Exhibition” in Manchester in 1857 and the posthumous exhibition “The Works of the Late Sir E. Landseer” at the Royal Academy in 1874. It was reproduced as an engraving under the title “The Intruder.”
Soon after it was completed, it was acquired by the Grey-Egerton family of Oulton Park, now a motor racing circuit. It sold mid-estimate for £4,200.
Parisienne-born sculptor Henri-Alfred-Marie Jacquemart (1824-1896) was a leading contributor to the animalier school of the 19th Century. His animal works were exhibited at the Salon in Paris from 1847 to 1879. He appears to have been commissioned for most of his work in what must have been a successful career, travelling all over the eastern Mediterranean.
His bronzes always had movement and fluidity, which typified the best of the animaliers. His life-size model of a Greyhound about to eat from a bowl was sold by Sloane Street Auctions within estimate for £18,000.
Throughout history, animals have played an integral part in wars around the world. Their contribution was immeasurable and often unrecognized. This changed when the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals medal was instituted in 1943 in the United Kingdom to honor the work of animals in World War II. The medal was the brainchild of Maria Dickin, who was the founder of the veterinary charity. It is a bronze medallion bearing the words “For Gallantry” and “We Also Serve” within a laurel wreath, carried on a ribbon of striped green, dark brown and pale blue. It is awarded to animals that have displayed “conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the British Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units.” It is commonly referred to as “the animals’ Victoria Cross.”
The medal was awarded 54 times between 1943 and 1949 to 32 pigeons, 18 dogs, three horses and one cat. The awarding of the medal was revived in 2000, and as of January 2023 it has been awarded 74 times. The first recipients of the award in December 1943 were three pigeons serving with the Royal Air Force who contributed to the recovery of aircrews from ditched aircraft. The most recent recipient is Bass, a Belgium Malinois who served with the U.S. Marine Special Operation Command in Afghanistan.
Dickin medals rarely appear on the open market, the most recent being with coin and medal auction house Morton and Eden. This example was awarded to the German Shepherd Dog Antis, the only dog in World War II to accompany a Royal Air Force pilot on active combat missions. Shot down over no-man’s land, the Czech airman Vaclav Bozdech had found Antis as a starving puppy in an outbuilding.
After serving in the French Air Force, they escaped to Britain, where Bozdech joined No 311 (Czechoslovakia) Squadron at Speke with Antis its mascot. The dog showed an uncanny knack for hearing the approach of German bombing raids, far sooner than technical equipment, and in the aftermath of a raid would assist in the search and rescue of survivors. Antis took part in 32 combat missions with Bozdech. Wounded in action three times by shrapnel in the skies, Antis later saved the life of his master one last time, assisting him during his escape from Communist Czechoslovakia in 1948. Alerting Bozdech to the presence of a search party, he attacked and pinned down an armed border guard.
Antis’ story is told in a book written by Damien Lewis and published in 2013: “War Dog: The No-Man’s Land Puppy Who Took to the Skies.”
At Morton and Eden the medal had been expected to reach £30,000-50,000. It sold on top estimate, with the winning bid placed by a member of the Czech airman and dog owner’s family. David Kirk from Morton and Eden said of the sale: “It is always pleasing to see medals returning to the original family, and I am sure that they are absolutely thrilled to be reunited with it after so many years.”