Not on display

Comical Dogs

Oil Painting
1836 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Landseer, Edwin Henry (Sir, RA) (artist)
Place of origin
Great Britain (painted)

One of these wire-haired terriers has a ram's horn snuff container and wears a Scottish bonnet, while the other has a clay pipe in its mouth and wears a lady's cap. A critic observed that the artist 'gives them all the intelligence of the canine nature' but 'never plays with the falsehood of a fanciful or humanised expression'.

Object details

Categories
Paintings
Anthropomorphism
Images Online
Smoking Accessories
Scotland
Object type
Oil painting
TitleComical Dogs (popular title)
Materials and techniques
oil on panel
Oil Paint
Panel
Oil Painting
Brief description
Oil painting entitled 'Comical Dogs' by Sir Edwin Landseer. Great Britain, 1836.
Physical description
'Comical Dogs', oil on panel, depicting two dogs, one wearing a white bonnet appears to smoke a pipe and sits back on its hind legs with both front paws up, the other dog is wearing a Scottish tam on his head.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 69.8cm
  • Estimate width: 76.2cm
  • Framed depth: 7.2cm
  • Framed height: 101.3cm
  • Framed width: 107.3cm
Dimensions taken from Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990
Style
British School
Gallery label
(24/07/2008)
Landseer often portrayed Highland 'types', and in Comical Dogs this interest in the Scottish character is given an anthropomorphic dimension. The dogs are dressed up as a Scottish Darby and Joan. The terrier in the tam o'shanter fixes us with a keenly appraising gaze while his 'wife', wearing a lady's bonnet, sucks philosophically on her clay pipe.
Credit line
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Object history
Given by John Sheepshanks, 1857
Summary
One of these wire-haired terriers has a ram's horn snuff container and wears a Scottish bonnet, while the other has a clay pipe in its mouth and wears a lady's cap. A critic observed that the artist 'gives them all the intelligence of the canine nature' but 'never plays with the falsehood of a fanciful or humanised expression'.
Bibliographic references
  • Richard Ormond, Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2005.
  • Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, Ronald Parkinson, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: HMSO, 1990, p. 149
  • Julius Bryant, ed. Art and Design for All. The Victoria and Albert Museum London: V&A Publishing, 2011. ISBN: 9781851776665.
  • p.68 Tom Ewart, Stephan Brakensiek ... [et al.] eds. Les animaux dans l'art Luxembourg : Villa Vauban, c2013. Description: 96 p. : col. ill., ports. ; 30 cm. ISBN: 9782919878024
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
FA.100[O]

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Record createdJanuary 14, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72972/comical-dogs-oil-painting-landseer-edwin-henry/
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