Sporting Dogs In Art
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text and illustrations by Ria Hörter
Seven English Setters
by Edmund Henry Osthaus (1853-1928)
Two men played an important role in developing the modern English Setter: Edward Laverack (1800-77), a breeder in Shropshire (England), and Richard L. Purcell Llewellin (1840-1925) of Leicestershire. It is said that Laverack focused more on conformation than hunting ability.
In the painting, several dogs are resting together on a kennel bench. The English Setter is a tolerant breed, “gentle, affectionate, friendly…” according to the AKC standard.
Although the dogs are at rest, they seem to be attentive to something that’s about to happen. Is someone coming with food, or leashes for a walk? Maybe there will be a shooting trip or preparations for a show.
Every dog has more or less the same soft expression and elegant appearance. Their heads have the characteristic occipital protuberance and well-defined stop; their ears are clothed in fine silky hair. The painter was obviously familiar with the breed.
According to William Secord, author of several authoritative books about dog painting, this work is not characteristic of the artist, who is best known for depicting Pointers and setters at work in the field.
Superb Bird Dog
Setters, which derived from the larger land spaniels, have been bird dogs in England for hundreds of years. Conjectured opinion is that there were crossings with pointers and the Large Water Spaniel.
The breed was named for its practice of setting or crouching near the birds it had found, so the hunter could throw a net over him to trap the birds.
How setters worked was described by Johannes Caius in his book de Canibus Britannicus, published in 1570 (translated by Abraham Fleming as of Englishe Dogges in 1576). “When he hath found the bird, he keepeth sure and fast silence, he stayeth his steps and will proceed no further; and with a close, covert, watching eye, layeth his belly to the ground, and so creepeth forward like a worm.”
Setters descended from the older British land spaniels that developed into setting, springing and cocking dogs – i.e. setters, springer spaniels and cocker spaniels. In 1872, Edward Laverack stated in his book The Setter: “In fact, the Setter is but an improved Spaniel. I am of the opinion that all Setters have more or less originally sprung from our various strains of Spaniels.”
About 1825, Laverack obtained Ponto (“black grey”) and Old Moll (“silver grey”); today they would be described as blue belton. They were bred by Rev. A. Harrison, who had kept his strain pure for over 35 years, so this type of setter already existed around 1790. After the first dog show in England, at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1859, the English Setter flourished throughout England.
In 1874, C.H. Raymond from Morris Plains, N.J., imported the first Laverack English Setter to America. From the strain of Richard L. Purcell Llewellin, whose line was based on Laverack’s best dogs, came the famous American field trial setter Count Noble (1879-91). Count Noble had a highly successful field trial career; he sired about 30 Field Trial Champions and was described as “a national symbol of what was great in bird dogs.” His obituary was published in The New York Times. A portrait by Osthaus hangs in the first-floor reading room of the Duquesne Club, a private club in Pittsburgh founded in 1873.
After Count Noble’s death, his preserved body was displayed for nearly a century in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The display was later moved to The National Bird Dog Museum in Tennessee.
Working Type and Show Type
The first entry in the National American Kennel Club registry – a private venture begun in 1878 – was Adonis, a black, white and tan male English Setter born in 1875. After the American Kennel Club was established in 1884, it acquired the NAKC registry from its owner as a gift to be used as the foundation of the AKC Stud Book.
Although Laverack and Llewellin each played a key role in the development of the English Setter, Llewellin’s name has been irrevocably associated with field work. In both England and America, the field (working) type and show type English Setter look very different, even though they’re the same breed. Generally speaking, working English Setters tend to be smaller, with less feathering and usually (but not always) a more distinctive spotted coat than show setters. Show-type setters are heavier in head, weight and coat. A full coat, groomed to perfection, gives an English Setter a very stylish appearance.
In 1938, an 11-month-old English Setter named Daro of Maridor was Best in Show at Westminster. It was his first outing at a dog show. To date, he is the only English Setter to have won Westminster Best in Show.
The breed’s parent club with the AKC for almost 70 years is the English Setter Association of America (essa.com). English Setters ranked 91st out of 177 breeds registered by the American Kennel Club in 2013.
In its home country, The Kennel Club listed the English Setter as a vulnerable breed in 2012 after only 234 were registered in 2011. Currently, it’s under watch with 332 registered in 2014.
The Artist
Edmund Henry Osthaus (1853-1928) was born in the German city of Hildesheim (Westfalen), in the neighborhood of Hanover, on August 5, 1858. His father, Henry O. Osthaus, was German, his mother English – “a gentle woman of great beauty and charm.” In his rural childhood – his father was a “gentleman farmer” – Osthaus displayed a talent for sketching farm animals. After his early education at the Gymnasium Josephinum in Hildesheim, he was encouraged by his father to become an architect. However, his talent as a painter earned him a place at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf (1874-82). Young Osthaus then completed his studies at the studio of Christian J. Kröner, “the most renowned painter of wild animals and forest scenery of his era.”
Gustav Muss-Arnolt (1858-1927), another well-known German-born artist who emigrated to America, was a contemporary of Osthaus and equally active in the dog world and art world as a conformation judge and painter of sporting dogs.
Mexico
With the support of King Napoleon III of France, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (1832-67), a member of the Habsburg family, tried to establish a dynasty in Mexico. In 1864, Osthaus and his father traveled with the ill-fated archduke to Mexico, but I have not been able to find the reason why. They stayed with Maximilian for four years and were with him on the day of his execution in 1867. They barely escaped with their own lives, flew to America, then returned to Germany. Osthaus’ parents emigrated to Toledo, Ohio, in 1883; Edmund and his sister Marie Henrietta (1854/5-1927) followed in 1883, settling in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Marie – who married printer and amateur photographer Ellsworth L. Griffith – became a well-known and talented landscape and still-life painter. An avid huntsman, fisherman and field trial judge, Edmund became famous for his paintings of sporting dogs. Ellsworth L. Griffith frequently accompanied his brother-in-law on sketching trips.
In 1892, Edmund married Charlotte M. Becker in Milwaukee; she died less than two years later. He then married Isabel Carleton of Port Huron, Michigan in 1903; they had one son, Franz, born in 1904.
Maumee Kennels
Ohio newspaperman and satirist David Ross Locke met Osthaus on a fishing trip in 1886 and invited him to teach at the Toledo Academy of Fine Art, which he had recently established. In 1893, Osthaus resigned as director at the academy to open a studio in Toledo. During this time he continued to participate in shooting trips, field trials and dog shows as an exhibitor and judge.
Osthaus exhibited his own Pointers and Setters in both conformation shows and field trials. In the late 1880s and early ‘90s, he co-owned the Maumee Kennels in Toledo with the well-respected English Setter breeder J.E. Dager, and joined the Tile Club, a society of Toledo artists that founded the Toledo Museum of Art.
Through his sporting activities, Osthaus became friends with various wealthy families, and his work was commissioned by prominent sportsmen. As well, his paintings were reproduced in advertising, postcards and calendars. The DuPont Powder Company featured his work on advertising for its smokeless gunpowder.
National Field Trial Association
A charter member of the National Field Trial Association founded in Newton, N.C., in 1895, and frequent field trial judge, Osthaus followed the circuit across the country and in Canada. He painted the NFTA winner’s portrait every year from 1896 to 1910.
Apart from his studio in Toledo, Osthaus opened a second studio in New York, and another in Los Angeles in 1911, in the Walker Studio Buildings. He exhibited at the San Diego Fine Arts Gallery up to 1927.
Osthaus died at his shooting lodge in Marianna, Florida on January 30, 1928, after a day’s shooting.
A newspaper once stated of his work: “The Osthaus dogs are not studio dogs. They live on the canvas as they live in the field, transferred by some magic of brain and hand from trail to canvas.”
The prices for Osthaus’ paintings remain high. In December 2006, a large oil of three Pointers sold at Christies in New York for $180,000.
His paintings are in a number of American collections, including the Toledo Museum of Art, the Oshkosh Public Museum, Washington County Museum, Canton Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art and the American Kennel Club. Edmund Osthaus is considered to be among America’s greatest sporting artists.
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Posted by ralbee
on Apr 25 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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