string!

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, www.nga.gov (PD)

This delicate portrait by Joseph Goodhue Chandler (American, 1813-84) dates from c. 1836-38.  He had only just embarked on his painting career, and most of his early work is of family members.  Perhaps this brown-eyed "Girl With a Kitten" is one of these relations.  It's interesting to me how well modeled her face is compared to the flattened treatment of her dress and her pose; I also note the fine spray of greenery outside the window, which to me reflects all the tender growing this young lady has ahead.  As sweet as she looks, she's got a fierce companion:

Would you look at that face?  What a mighty hunter.  

cat basket

Copyright © 2000–2018 The Athenaeum (PD)

That's the title: "Cat Basket." (Also known as "Study of Cats III," but everyone seems to prefer the other.)  This delicious Franz Marc from 1909 shows a free gusto in the strokes used for the cats' fur.  Don't those cats look plush and twitchy, as though they'll bounce up and out at any second?  Perhaps he was painting quickly in case they did. 

happy thanksgiving to you and yours

John Charles Dollman [Public domain] -Table d'Hote at a Dogs' Home, 1879, detail

May each and every one of you find joy and tasty treats wherever you may be today!  

Here's my favorite bit of the painting above:

Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers! 

I'm grateful for you.

a cat in the meadow

www.nationalmuseum.se, Purchase 2013 Sophia Giesecke Fund

We've seen Bruno Liljefors' cats here before at the Museum, pretending for a few moments to be mighty lords of the jungle as they hunt and play in Swedish fields.  As winter closes in here in the Northwest, I find it pleasant to post another.  Cat in a Flowery Meadow was created in 1887, a memory of a young cat and a fine day that reminds us of other kittens and blooms to come.

two dashing art types

www.nationalmuseum.se
Purchase 2012 by Hedda and N.D. Qvists Fund

Here's a couple of bad-ass, black-clad art types from early 20th century Sweden: Selfportrait with Dog, an undated oil sketch on cardboard by Bernhard Osterman (1870-1938). Osterman's work included graphic art, cartooning and arts management, but he's best appreciated for his portraits.  He traveled widely in Europe, and spent years practicing in Paris.  Most of his portriats are of the famous and important, and they look as formal as you'd imagine.  This self-portrait is more of an experiment, I think, in which Osterman tried his hand at a freer technique and feel that was more in line with Impressionism.  Was that his own dog, I wonder, or did he borrow him as the perfect counterpoint to his own black-clad figure?

offstage

Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971 www.metmuseum.org

No one knows precisely whom they are, this guarded young noblewoman and her fuzzy watchman.  Painted by Alonzo Sanchez Coello around the 1570s  (as it's thought), this "Portrait of a Woman" could be a member of Philip II's court; the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has citations suggesting she's a member of the Pernstein or Aragon families.  I've found out that right about this time, Vratislav von Pernstein, Chancellor of Bohemia, had married two of his daughters into the Aragon nobility. 
There's a Mannerist hyperattention to detail in the portrayal of rich textiles and surfaces, but at the same time, there is an intensity here that is arresting.  I say this not only because of this young woman's intense dark-eyed gaze; look at her dog, below.

credit as above

 Someone he liked?  Someone he didn't trust?  There is an implied third relationship here, and we'll never know whom it was who stood offstage.

companions

Vladimir Borovikovsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1814: a well-to-do, artistic young couple poses with their woolly poodle.  This portrait of A.A. and A.G. Lobonov-Rostovsky - I can't figure out which is which - was painted by Vladimir Borovikovsky (Ukrainian-Russian, 1757-1825).  A popular portrait painter, he grew up in a family of icon illuminators.  I wonder if that has anything to do with the luminosity his portraits often show; those of his sitters who are young and/or beautiful often seem lit from within.  In this case that even extends to the dog:

"a small white spanish dog"

public domain courtesy of the livrustkammaren (royal armoury museum, stockholm).
object record here

Years and old lacquer will make any fur look more yellowed than white, and that's most likely what has happened to this oil portrait, which dates from the 1600s. The "Spanish" part comes from the paper label pasted onto the lower left, which reads in translation: "No 22. // An Oil Painting Table // A Small White // Spanish Dog".  No one seems to know why he should be Spanish, as he certainly looks like a poodle (a breed originating in Germany).

a dog watches

Gift of Arnold Whitcomb Morse in memory of his parents Guilford Alden and Isabel Barton Morse
collections.artsmia.org (PD)

A little boy, wearing the dress-like children's clothing of the time (c. 1835), listens to a ticking watch.  The family dog watches over him with an alert expression, or at least that's what I think he was meant to do; in a larger view you can see that he actually seems to be behind the boy, and so he's actually looking offstage.  It's all part of the charm of this simply fashioned oil portrait by Samuel Miller of Boston, about whom there's not much available.  In its flatness, the portrait also takes on a certain timelessness, which becomes more poignant when we learn that the act of listening to the watch likely indicates this as a posthumous portrait (see the painting's page at the Minneapolis Institute of Art).  The same bright yellow picks out the watch, its chain, and the dog's collar.  Did Miller mean us to contrast how quickly time flies with the patient devotion of the dog? 

the king's white squirrel

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

He's an odd-looking fellow, but he seems happy enough to stay put and have a nibble.  This is a white squirrel presented as a gift to Sweden's King Charles XI in July of 1696. He liked it so much that he commissioned its portrait from court painter David Klocker Ehrenstrahl, a prolific Rococo-influenced artist whose work encompassed the royal horses as well as the courtiers.  Ehrenstrahl also painted this sympathetic portrait of a dog with short spine syndrome.

cat mini

https://www.webumenia.sk/dielo/SVK:SNG.O_4917 PD

Before photographs were readily available to stuff in wallets and pockets, people often kept beloved faces close through tiny paintings.  Someone in Slovakia around 1800 - 1825 had this particular face immortalized in gouache on cardboard, measuring only 6.8 x 5.6 cm.  Portrait miniatures would be a charming fashion to revive.

smile

www.rijksmuseum.nl
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7386

Coenraad van Heemskerck is portrayed here in all his stateliness, thanks to Dutch painter Mattheus Verheyden.  Van Heemskerck was a diplomat and politician, Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and Lord of Achttienhoven and Den Bosch.  Last but not least, he had this very happy dog:

puppy peace

 [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We've seen the luminous work of Takeuchi Seiho a couple of times before at the Museum; you may recall a mouse going formal, a cat keeping clean.  Here is a piece dating around 1935 titled "Tranquility" and absolutely delivering what it promises.

blending in, 1779

https://collections.artsmia.org, william hoood dunwoody fund  (public domain)

Gilbert Stuart (American, 1755-1838) is best known for this portrait of George Washington.  That work is only one among the 1,000-plus portraits he executed in his career (and he still managed to leave his family in poverty).  This work, "Portrait of James Ward," was done in London, where he worked from 1775 to 1787.  Since the posing here is very like those in court and nobility portraits by Van Dyck, I thought perhaps James Ward might be an aristocrat's son or someone of similar standing, but that remains unknown.

Look how his dog blends into the backing landscape.  I think perhaps he may be a poodle, one bred for the hunt, as poodles are superb waterfowl dogs.  Everything here is a muted, brownish shade until you get to the boy's dazzling face, hair, and framing collar.  You could be forgiven for thinking of the dog as window dressing, but Stuart has shown such a look of shining adoration on his face as he looks up at his boy.

another little spaniel, 1560s

Gift of Edith Neuman de Végvár, in honor of her husband, Charles Neuman de Végvár, 1963. www.metmuseum.org

This work by Northern Italian painter Bernardino Campi (1522-91) is known only as "Portrait of a Woman," and dates from the 1560's.  Here we find another example of a very small spaniel, this one portrayed in an oddly toylike way.  This may have something to do with Campi's Mannerist styling (seen in the lady's elongated figure and the extreme detail of her clothing).  If you're curious about Mannerism, which was a pretty curious movement in any case, here's an article at the Metropolitan.

wright of derby includes the dog

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (PD)

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (PD)

1786:  Joseph Wright of Derby takes up his brush to portray the Reverend Thomas Gisborne, his wife Mary, and their greyhound.  The Gisbornes (he's 28 here, she's 26, and they're two years into a marriage that results in eight children) are comfortable in their rural setting, though the elegance of their clothing makes it clear they're no hicks.  Mary gazes in her husband's general direction with a hand on his shoulder, but he looks out onto the world, with a hand lovingly cradling the dog's muzzle.  I wondered if there was any reflection of this in his work, and as it happens, Gisborne did publish two books on the duties of the sexes.You guessed it:  long story short, women are divinely appointed helpmeets.  (If you want to page through his An Enquiry Into the Duties of the Female Sex, here you go.)  He was also an abolitionist, and a poet.   I hoped to find something of his in which he spoke kindly of animal beings, based on the tender way he interacts with his dog.  When I did some digging, frankly what I liked best was his hymn about worms, "Turn, Turn Thy Hasty Foot Aside":

TURN, turn thy hasty foot aside, 

Nor crush that helpless worm! 

The frame thy scornful looks deride 

Requir’d a God to form.

The common Lord of all that move, 

From whom thy being flow’d, 

A portion of His boundless love 

On that poor worm bestow’d.

The sun, the moon, the stars He made 

To all His creatures free: 

And spreads o’er earth the grassy blade 

For worms as well as thee. 

Let them enjoy their little day, 

Their lowly bliss receive; 

O do not lightly take away 

The life thou canst not give!

an entertaining little fellow

www.nationalgallery.org.uk Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917

You'd never guess that the person who painted this relaxed scene also painted at the front lines of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1).  The artist was John Lewis Brown, born in France of Scottish parents.  Brown was known for his sporting and military scenes, as well as his paintings of dogs and horses.  (You see he's got one of both of those here.)  I think that what we're looking at is a soldier playing with his dog for a peaceful moment, lending his hat for extra effect.  The look on the man's face is tender, tired, winsome, as if he were grateful for this small gentle time.  The dog just wants to please, because face it, they're love incarnate.  It's true that we've bred them to be this; what a pity we can't do that for ourselves in general.

year of the dog by zen brush

image copyright and by kindest permission of seiko morningstar

Here is a happy Shiba Inu offering a play bow so that you'll come and celebrate the Year of the Dog with him.  If, like me, you love Japanese ink paintings, you'll love this messenger - and the rest of the work by his creator, Zen monk Seiko Morningstar.  Deceptively simple, but full of spirit and life force, Zen ink painting offers you immediate connection with its subjects.  You see the essence of flower, of tree, of wave, of dog.  Very refreshing and freeing. 

Have a look at the playful beings on offer at Seiko's shop, ZenBrush.

Would you like to learn a little more about this style of painting?  This essay at the Metropolitan isn't a bad place to start.

Seiko mentioned to me that it's an Earth Dog year:

The Year of Earth Dog begins Feb. 16, 2018 (Chinese New Year) and lasting to Feb. 4, 2019. The Dog is the eleventh in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac sign and those born in the Dog years are People born in the Year of the Dog are usually independent, sincere, and loyal friends.

I'll be reaching out again around then, but it's never too soon to wish you all joy and peace for the new Year of the Dog.

dog portrait by joanne jarry

image copyright and by kindest permission of the artist

Asleep or thinking dog thoughts?  I like how this deft watercolor by Canadian artist Joanne Jarry leaves it open for interpretation with this interesting vantage point.  Look at the crisp bluish shadow, and the way the brown fur is washed down to white to give modeling and highlight to the dog's form.  Beautifully executed.  Jarry does pet portrait commissions, and at her Etsy shop you can see a wide variety of them. 

bounding into the new year

Museum purchase funded by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund
https://www.mfah.org (PD)

It's a beautiful day in the world of Sir Joshua Reynolds.  The year is 1777, and Mrs. Elisha Mathews, first wife of Francis Mathew 1st Viscount Llandaff, is posing in a gray dress that shows up well against the dramatically clouded sky.  This is a snapshot of a glamorous stroll for a poised, dignified gentlewoman 13 years married and the mother of an heir and a spare.  Now have a look at her dog, a pretty spaniel or setter, excited, happy, full of liveliness - all the feelings a fine lady cannot show openly if she wishes to stay dignified and fashionable, even though her face looks as if she's very well aware of her own good fortune.
I thought it was most clever of Sir Joshua to signal this lady's life and situation through her furry sidekick.  Also, this portrait reflects how I myself feel about the year to come:  soberly, wryly evaluating possibilities to myself, while another part wants to frisk and bark with hope and fresh days to come. 
Happy New Year's Eve to you all!