Painted by Landseer in 1824:
Please compare this dog with what I strongly feel is a Newfoundland dog in an 1837 painting by William Barraud.
These dogs are very similar in head shape, tail carriage, and body structure. If one accepts that the dog and horse are based upon real life proportions, the only real difference between Lion and Barraud’s Newfoundland is that Barraud’s has Irish markings.
I did not make a big assumption with that previous post.
I based it upon what I knew Newfoundland dogs in England looked like in the early part of the nineteenth century. I also included what has generally been accepted about the class divide in dogs. Dogs that were of the working class– including those that evolved into our collie breeds– were not widely kept by the nobility. They may have bred collie-types to their setters and retrievers, but they didn’t normally keep them at their estates.
Newfoundlands were once all the rage. They were the first breed to become extremely popular as pets in both Europe and North America. They were widely touted for their high intelligence and docility, traits for which their retriever cousins and descendants would later be greatly celebrated.
Eventually, solid-colored Newfoundlands became more popular, but those who bred the black and white ones called theirs “Landseers” for the man who painted many of them. In Europe, the Landseer is a different breed, but in the English-speaking countries, it is still a color variety of Newfoundland.
I do not make facts up, especially in the area of breed history.
Lies!
while I agree that the other picture isn’t a collie and is more “newf” than anything else, it is a much more leggy dog than the one shown above. Were there particularly “leggy” Newfs? (leggy meaning as tall as the dog is long and with as much leg as body depth).
I’ll note that Belgians are one of the few “leggy” herding breeds, and not all of them are leggy.
Peggy Richter.
Yes there were and are leggy Newfs.
Many Landseers are quite leggy, like this one that was the tallest dog in the world for a while:
I read an account that there were two types of large Newfound, one of which was rangy and the other stocky.
The FCI Landseers and many Landseers within the Newfoundland breed occasionally produce really lanky puppies.
http://books.google.com/books?id=6whIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA17&dq=stonehenge+dog+great+britain+and+america&hl=en&ei=haxFTdnaGsT48AbB99nDAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Newfoundland&f=false
“The Large Labrador” is this type of Newfoundland.
Okay, this is your blog and we’ll play by the house rules.
I still think that you’re reading too much into the picture. You can compare Barraud with Landseer and I think Barraud is a more primitive artist. He is stylish in that all the horses he painted have heads and necks that are smallish. His skills are different than Landseer who had a more natural style with a better sense of proportion and perspective.
That said let’s just call the canine a dog.
Well, you’re ignoring all the historical analysis I’ve provided.
I’m “not reading too much” into a picture.
I’m basing my analysis on what the historical record suggests it likely is.