Spaniel in a Landscape Holding a Basket, Village Church in the Distance
(date unknown)
(oil on canvas
55.8 x 74.9cm (22 x 29 1/2"in)
by
English School
This unsigned, undated work (in a style indicating influence largely by English painters, hence the "English School" identification) may well indeed depict a Newfoundland despite its title. It was common, at the turn of the 19th Century and for several decades thereafter, for Newfoundlands to be identified as a variety of spaniel, as is evident in other early paintings and descriptions of Newfoundlands. The noted English veterinarian and author William Youatt, to cite only one example, writes that "The Newfoundland is a spaniel of large size" (The Dog, 1845). I believe that's what we have in this painting: the basket held in the dog's mouth — a common-enough trick with Newfoundlands at the time — provides a sense of scale indicating that the dog is indeed Newf-sized, though the brown-and-white coloration is quite unusual though not entirely unknown.