This is said to be a “Victorian painting” of two “golden retrievers” and a “boxer.”
I can definitely say that the dog on the right is not a boxer. It is a bulldog.
The other two dogs might be golden retrievers, but they are very light in the eyes.
And one is unusually light in color for the time period. Such dogs existed but were generally frowned upon within the strain that became the golden retriever.
I think these are retrievers, though, but they might not be “golden retrievers,” as in they are part of the same strain that became the modern golden retriever. There were strains of “white wavy-coated retriever” that existed independently of that strain, as did several strains that produced yellows and reds.
These two dogs really could be golden retrievers as we know them today, or they could be from another strain of wavy-coated retriever.
If anyone knows anything about this painting– year, artist, and the identity of these three dogs– it would be greatly appreciated if you could pass on this information.
I would love to see this painting in person. It looks like the eyes of the “goldens” were done with a different technique than the rest of the painting… almost like they were painted over the original. It is very suspicious looking to me because the rest of the painting seems of much higher quality. Maybe it’s a bad restoration… just doesn’t look right.
-Jan
No way is the artist, Samuel / Sam Fulton “unknown”.
Fulton concentrated on painting fine high-quality portrets of dogs. His paintings are always hot when coming up in an auction. Fulton was a Scottish, born in Glasgow, and he lived 1855-1941, so he was actually late-victorian. He exhibited regurlarly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and it is presumeable that his models and audience came from that area mainly.
Fulton’s details can be red in M.A. Wingfield’s “Dictionary of Sporting Artists (1650-1990)”. What an ugly cover a book can have!