Monumental Dogs
In total contrast to my last feature on the delicate and beautiful objects of virtu, here is a small selection of monumental dogs from the vast number that are in public parks, streets and squares around the world.
The Welsh Corgi moved from the obscurity of a working cattle dog in Wales to global popularity in 1933, when King George VI gave his young daughter, Princess Elizabeth, a Pembrokeshire Corgi as a gift. The breed endeared itself to the Princess so much so that at the time of her death in 2022, as Queen Elizabeth II, she still owned two, Muick and Sandy. When she retired from breeding Corgis, she had been the longest continuous breeder of the breed in the U.K.
In the town of Oakham in the smallest county in the U.K., Rutland, stands a seven-foot bronze statue of the Queen, and on its base are Corgis. Commissioned in 2023, it was created by the London-based portrait sculpture Hywel Pratley, and up to 50 Corgis attended the unveiling. A bronze model of the standing Corgi has been cast in an edition of 10 (below).
People arriving in London from Paris on the Eurostar are greeted at St. Pancras Station by a nine-meter-tall bronze, “The Meeting Place,” created by British sculptor Paul Day (below). His high-relief sculptures have been exhibited widely in Europe. Modelled on an embrace between Paul and his wife Catherine, it was unveiled in 2007 and stands as a metaphor for St. Pancras’ role as a terminus of the rail link between England and France. At the base of The Meeting Place is a high-relief bronze frieze featuring images from the history of the tube and trains; people queueing on platforms, soldiers departing for war, travellers drinking at the bar. Among these is a bag lady descending the stairs for the night with her faithful dog. Over the years the dog’s head has been polished by the countless hands of passersby stroking it. From queen to bag lady, the dog knows no social barriers.
The story of the Japanese Akita Hachikō mirrors that of Greyfriars Bobby in Scotland. Hachikō was born in 1923 at a farm near the city of Ōdate in Akita Prefecture, Japan. In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at the Tokyo Imperial University, brought him to live in Shibuya, Tokyo, as his pet. Hachikō would meet Ueno at Shibuya Station every day after his commute home. This continued until Ueno died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage while at work. From then until his own death in March 1935, Hachikō would return to Shibuya Station every day to await Ueno’s return.
This attracted the attention of other commuters and people who worked at the station, and their initial reactions were not necessarily friendly. However, after an article about the dog appeared in a magazine, people started to bring Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his wait. The dog was found dead on a street in Shibuya and his body buried in the Aoyama Cemetery, Minato, Tokyo. He became a national sensation; his faithfulness to his master’s memory impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty to which all should strive to achieve. Hachikō’s story became the subject of books and movies, and over time three bronze statues have been created in his memory, the third in front of the Akita Dog Museum in Ōdate.
The final three statues all have military connections. In Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in New York is a monument erected in 1923 in memory of the 7,000-plus military dogs that served in World War I. The sculpture was reportedly modelled after a dog who with its owner daily passed the office of well-known designer Walter A. Buttendorf, one of the builders of Grand Central Station. The monument cost $2,500 and was funded by public donations, including pennies from schoolchildren. The cemetery donated the land on which it stands.
Standing on a rough-hewn boulder, the bronze monument is in the form of a German Shepherd Dog wearing a Red Cross blanket. The dog stands in an alert stance with head and ears perked up, and tail extended nearly straight. A canteen and helmet lie below the dog’s front paws. The helmet has an indentation, possibly representative of a shrapnel hole.
Standing proudly at the harbor’s edge in the Scottish town of Montrose is a large bronze memorial to the St. Bernard Bamse, the World War II Norwegian sea dog. The larger-than-life-size dog, which stands on a granite base, was created by artist and sculptor Alan Beattie Herriot, and unveiled in 2006 by the now disgraced Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
He became a national hero in Norway for his habit in battle while out at sea on his master’s ship for standing firm as a lookout at the foremost gun tower of the boat until hostilities ended. During his two years ashore in Montrose, Bamse wore a Norwegian sailor’s cap and was issued his own bus permit, which hung around his neck. If he was not allowed off ship with the sailors, he would take matters into his own hands and catch the bus to the sailors’ favorite bar to spend the evening with them.
When he died in 1944 aboard his master’s ship still based at Montrose, the local schools were closed in tribute. Several hundred children attended his funeral, and he was buried with his head facing his homeland of Norway.
On a roadside in the Po Delta in Italy on large stone base proudly stands a sculpture of an Italian Spinone. It was commissioned by the Italian Spinone breed club in 2018 and is a tribute to the breed in the region where it is generally used in both field and marshes. It is the creation of doctor, surgeon and hobby artist Carluccio Zangirolami.
Always passionate about history, Zangirolami began to collect splinters, the detritus of war, on the battlefields of World War I. It is these pieces, remnants of a bloody war, from which he creates his sculptures. They serve as a reminder and memorial to all the soldiers in the mud of the trenches or in the snow of the mountains who defended the homeland, many of whom gave the ultimate sacrifice. From the instruments of death come a memory and a new life.