Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys

Maas Gallery, London, in 1968;
Hartnoll & Eyre, London, where bought by Sir David Scott in January 1969 for £475.

Maas Gallery, London, Exhibition of Victorian Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings, 11-29 November 1968, no. 31;
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Sunshine & Shadow - The David Scott Collection of Victorian Paintings, 1991. no. 24.

Betty Elzea, Frederick Sandys 1829-1904 - A Catalogue Raisonné, Woodbridge, 2001, pp. 13, 153, catalogue no. 2.A.1., illustrated as colour plate 6;
Sotheby's, Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, 2008, pp. 108-109.

The following condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. STRUCTURAL CONDITION The artist's panel is providing a secure and stable structural support. PAINT SURFACE The painting fluoresces slightly unevenly under ultraviolet light. Under natural light a line of retouching can be seen along the lower horizontal framing edge, appearing in the blue pigments and measuring approximately 6 cm in length and covering frame abrasion to the paint surface. The paint surface has a few scratches and abrasions. SUMMARY The painting therefore appears to be in good and stable condition. Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6BU Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 4004 Fax: +44 (0)20 7930 4100 Email: hamish@hamishdewar.co.uk
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

A Yorkshire terrier, whose name 'Darby' is lettered on the basketwork of his wicker kennel, emerges from the arched doorway, looking with glistening eyes directly towards the viewer. The dog has been chewing at a woollen shawl while incarcerated in the kennel, because some strands of blue wool lie at his feet, while stems of straw from the dog's bedding also spill out. A piece of mauve wool hangs down on the right side of the doorway.

This is a most unusual subject for the Pre-Raphaelite follower Frederick Sandys to have taken. A brilliant technician in oil and as a draughtsman, he was a close friend of Rossetti's in the early 1860s, and in fact lived for a period at 16 Cheyne Walk as a lodger in the Rossetti household. His works of this period are generally figurative, often of female models in symbolical or allegorical roles in the mode that Rossetti pioneered from 1859 onwards. Later a breach with Rossetti occurred, with Sandys accused of plagiarising Rossetti's imaginative subjects. Still later Sandys made immaculate portrait drawings in chalk, as well as occasionally in oil. No information comes down to us as to the circumstances of his painting this delightful dog portrait, although Douglas Schoenherr in his Introduction to Betty Elzea's Sandys catalogue has speculated that it may be the portrait of a pet belonging to the artist's patron and friend the Revd James Bulwer.

Lindsay Errington has suggested that Sandys may have had in mind the pet dog, similarly curly and winsome, in Jan Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage (then as now in the National Gallery), in choosing to paint Darby. Comparison was made in an obituary of Sandys after his death in 1904 to the work of Van Eyck, which may mean that in his lifetime he had made something of a personal cult of the works of the Flemish artist. Betty Elzea, in her catalogue of Sandys's works, draws comparison between 'Darby' and various of the terrier subjects painted by the older Victorian artist, Edwin Landseer, citing Dignity and Impudence (Tate), of 1839, and Pincher, the Property of Montague Gore, Esq. (c. 1848) as particularly close. The former subject had been engraved and was very widely known.