Return Engagement: 5,000 Years of Dogs in Art

Isabella reporting,

Yes, we've had this as a Friday Video before - but there are so many beautiful images (and pooches!) that it's well worth a return engagement. This wonderful compilation is the work of Moira McLaughlin, surely a dog-lover. See here for a complete list of all the artworks.

King Edward VII's Favorite: Caesar, the Wire Fox Terrier

Isabella reporting:

One of our most popular posts last year featured Queen Victoria and perhaps her favorite subject: her pet border collie, Sharp. Sharp was only one of many dogs in the royal entourage during the queen's long reign, and it's clear she passed her love of pets on to her oldest son, Edward.

In the last years of his life, King Edward VII's favorite was a feisty wire fox terrier named Caesar. Officially named Caesar of Notts, born in 1898 in the kennels of the Duchess of Newcastle, Caesar was widely known as a high-strung little dog with questionable manners. Disgruntled courtiers and hosts to royal visits referred to Caesar as "stinky."

But to the King, the dog was a loyal and inseparable companion that travelled everywhere with him. He slept in an easy chair beside the King's bed, and had his own footman specifically assigned to tend to his needs. His portrait was painted several times, and a model of him was carved in chalcedony and studded with jewels by the master jeweler Faberge. As was fitting for such an indulged royal pet, Caesar wore a collar with a gold tag that read "I am Caesar. I belong to the King" - not that it was ever in doubt.

Certainly Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst, could testify to that. "Whenever I went into the King's cabin [on board the royal yacht]," he reminisced, "this dog always went for my trousers and worried them, much to the King's delight. I used not to take the slightest notice and went on talking all the time to the King, which I think amused His Majesty still more."

But it wasn't until the King died in 1910 that Caesar endeared himself to the British people. Caesar was included in the King's funeral procession, led by a highlander, and the sight of the little white dog walking forlornly behind his master's coffin was an image that many never forgot, right. (One who definitely didn't was Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was reportedly incensed at being placed behind a mere dog in the procession.)

Caesar was painted one last time, bottom left, with his head resting on a favorite chair of the dead king. Called Silent Sorrow, the painting poignantly captured the dog's grief for his lost master. Although Caesar shifted his devotion to Queen Alexandra, he did not live much longer than the king, dying himself in 1914.

Top left: King Edward VII with Caesar, 1908.
Right: Funeral process of Edward VII, with Caesar, the King's dog, following his casket, 1910.
Bottom left: Silent Sorrow, by Maud Earl, 1910. American Kennel Club.

"All the Virtues of Man without his Vices": Lord Byron's Dog Boatswain, 1803-1808

Susan reporting:

There's nothing like a devoted dog to bring out the best in people. Queen Victoria could be chilly and distant with her human subjects, but her dogs always received considerable affection. The poet George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824) was better known more his many lovers than for his faithfulness – except when it came to his dog Boatswain, left.

Byron loved animals. As a student at Cambridge, he famously rebelled against a rule forbidding pet dogs in lodgings by keeping a pet bear instead. Throughout his life, he kept an ever-changing menagerie of pets that included cats, horses, peacocks, a badger, a goat, geese, a heron, a fox, a parrot, and four monkeys.

But Boatswain was his favorite. A black and white Newfoundland (though in paintings he looks more like a modern border collie), Boatswain was equally devoted to Byron. When Boatswain was tragically attacked and bitten by a rabid dog, Byron insisted on nursing Boatswain himself, heedless of the risk, and grieved deeply at the dog's inevitable death. "Boatswain is dead!" he lamented to a friend. "He expired in a state of madness...after suffering much, yet retaining all the gentleness of his nature to the last, never attempting to do the least injury to anyone near him."

Though in dire financial straits, Byron erected a costly marble monument over Boatswain's grave on the grounds of Newstead Abbey, and drew the inscription from his poem Epitaph to a Dog.

   Near this Spot
   Are deposited the Remains of one
   Who possessed Beauty without Vanity
   Strength without Insolence
   Courage without Ferocity
   And all the virtues of Man without his Vices
   This praise which would be unmeaning Flattery
   if inscribed over human Ashes
   is but a just tribute to the Memory of 
   BOATSWAIN a DOG,
   Who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
   And died at Newstead Nov. 18 1808

It was Byron's great desire to be buried with Boatswain, and he expressed that wish in his will. But by the time he died, Newstead had been sold to another owner, who did not wish his home to become the final resting place of the famed poet, nor have it overrun with his grieving admirers. Byron was instead buried in his family's vault in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall. One hopes that he and Boatswain are finally joined in spirit, if not in fact.

The romantic painting, right, by Ford Madox Brown was completed long after the deaths of both Byron and Boatswain. Inspired by Byron's semi-autobiographical poem The Dream (1816), it shows Byron with his first lover, Mary Chaworth. While she represents lost love and thwarted dreams, it's ever-faithful Boatswain who stands for loyalty.

Above: Lord Byron's Dog Boatswain (1803-1808) by Clifton Tomson, 1808
Below: Byron's Dream by Ford Madox Brown, 1874

Quick, It's the Cats' Meat Man! 1819

Susan reporting:

When reading last week about 18th c. milk-maids, I wandered off into London's street vendors in general, many selling wares that no longer have a market. Curds and whey, anyone?

To my horror, one of these was the cats' meat man. Now I'm that stereotypical writer with a pair of thoroughly spoiled cats, and though I knew Georgian England was a rough-and-tumble place, I didn't want to imagine my kits on Samuel Johnson's dinner menu. Fortunately, my first reading of this trade was wrong: the cats' meat in question was food for the little darlings, not food made from them.

The cats' meat man (or woman, since later in the 19th c. this seems to have become a female trade) trundled his barrow through residential neighborhoods with chunks of raw horse-meat on wooden skewers. This he would cut to order on the wooden board that topped his barrow especially for the purpose.  Like their counterpart, the dogs' meat men, the best cats' meat men knew their customers well, and could greet them and their owners by name. As Thomas Rowlandson's 1819 illustration, left, shows, the doubtlessly fragrant barrow also attracted quite a following, with eager pets racing to greet his arrival. I particularly like the cat leaping from the upstairs window.

Charles Hindley's Cries of Old London was first published in 1880. More a poem than an actual cry, this selection  does reflect a time when cat food wasn't a scientific mix from a specialty pet store.
   Hark! how the Pussies make a rout –
   To buy you can't refuse; 
   So may you never be without
   The music of their mews.
   Here's famous meat – all lean, no fat –
   No better in Great Britain;
   Come, buy a penn'orth for your Cat –
   A happ'orth for your Kitten!

See here for more about Rowlandson's vendors, and here for a lengthy, grisly description of the finer points (aka butchering) of being a successful cats' meat man in the Victorian era. But don't say I didn't warn you....


Above: Cats and Dogs' Meat?  from 'Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders' by Thomas Rowlandson, published 1820.

Queen Victoria's Favorite: Sharp, the Border Collie

Susan reporting:

It's difficult to imagine English monarchs without their dogs. Whether King Charles II surrounded by his scurrying spaniels or the current queen with her corgis, royalty and dogs seem inseparable. The connection makes sense, really. What human courtier could ever offer the complete and unquestioning loyalty of a canine counterpart?

Queen Victoria was no exception. With her love of all things Scottish, the little queen admired the collies bred by sheep farmers in the border lands between England and Scotland. The first of the Queen's favorites was named Sharp, acquired in 1866 soon after the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, and the dog proved the perfect comfort to the grieving queen, even earning a place in royal photographs such as this one, upper left. He was also painted, right, by the queen's favorite animal portraitist, Charles Burton Barber. (This painting is soon to be sold at auction, where it is predicted to bring between $4,000-6,000 from either an art or dog lover.)

Border collies were still an unfamiliar breed to most 19th c. Englishmen, and many surrounding Her Majesty wished they had remained so. While Sharp was devoted to his mistress and to her personal servant, John Brown, others found the dog to be quarrelsome and badly trained. Wrote a contemporary:

One pet collie rejoiced in the name of Sharp. He had all his meals with his mistress, being seldom away from her. Though such a favorite...the popularity of the quadruped had limits. The households used to retreat before him, for Sharp not only barked with vigor, but could bite with spite. Even the Queen mentions that the pet was fond of fighting. Referring to him after a ramble, she mentions that the collie varied the monotony of the walk by numerous 'collie shangies'; it is the Highland phrase for a set-to between dogs of Sharp's breed.

Even after his death in 1879, Sharp continued to hold his place in the queen's affections. He was buried in her garden in Windsor Home Park, Berkshire, beneath the elaborate tomb, lower left, and immortalized as the "favourite and faithful Collie of Queen Victoria." What dog –– or queen –– could ask for more?

Above left: Queen Victoria with Sharp the Border Collie at Balmoral, 1867
Right: Sharp, Brother of Fern by Charles Burton Barber, 1877
Lower left: Monument to Sharp, Windsor Castle, Berkshire

Gone to Sea A-Ratting: the Tale of a Tudor Terrier

Susan reports:

One of the most famous shipwrecks in English history was the sinking of the Mary Rose. An important vessel in Henry VIII's navy, the Mary Rose had a long career spanning three decades of warfare before she finally sank during an attack on French forces on 19 July 1545, near the Isle of Wight.

More than four centuries later, the Mary Rose was raised and recovered in an extraordinary feat of maritime archaeology. Not only was much of the ship itself recovered, but a wealth of Tudor-era artifacts – over 19,000 in all – were salvaged, ranging from weapons and navigational tools to the personal belongings of the lower-deck crewmen.

But perhaps the single most engaging discovery was the skeleton of the ship's dog. Nicknamed Hatch by the archeologists (because the remains were discovered near the hatch door of the ship's carpenter's cabin), the skeleton is believed to have belonged to a young female mongrel terrier. Sixteenth century sailors, a superstitious lot, were convinced that cats brought bad luck to ships at sea. Rat-catching dogs became an important member of the shipboard company, and Hatch was likely not only a working dog, but a favorite with the rest of the crew.

Certainly Hatch is continuing to serve her ship in the twenty-first century. A new museum to house the  Mary Rose is being constructed as part of the Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth, UK, and to help raise awareness and funds for the project, Hatch recently made an appearance at the 2010 Crufts dog show in Birmingham as the special guest of the sponsoring Kennel Club. While Hatch might not have claimed a ribbon, she was, in her own way, Best in Show.

Above left: Skeleton of Ship's Dog, The Mary Rose Trust.
Above right: The Carrack Mary Rose, illustration by Anthony Roll, c. 1546