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Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler
Sir Edwin Landseer1820
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Edwin Landseer was only 18 when he painted this powerful work showing a rescue in the Great Saint Bernard Pass in the Alps. Two dogs have found an unconscious man partially buried by snow. They work to uncover him and alert monks in the background, who are already rushing to his aid.
Augustinian monks had established a hospice (shelter) in the pass to help anyone in need of housing or medical attention. The large dogs they bred, which were famous for finding and rescuing travelers, are the ancestors of the Saint Bernards we know today.
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Details
- Title: Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler
- Creator: Sir Edwin Landseer
- Date Created: 1820
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 189 × 237 cm (74 7/16 × 93 5/16 in.) framed: 219.71 × 267.65 × 15.88 cm (86 1/2 × 105 3/8 × 6 1/4 in.) framed weight: 81.647 kg (180 lb.)
- Provenance: Purchased 1820 from the artist by Jesse Watts Russell [1786-1875], Ilam Hall, Staffordshire;[1] (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 3 July 1875, no. 29, as _St. Bernard Dogs_); (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London);[2] sold 8 July 1875 to Richard Peacock [1820-1889], Gorton Hall, near Manchester;[3] (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 4 May 1889, no. 65, as _Alpine Mastiffs_, not sold);[4] Richard Peacock estate; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26 March 1892, no. 118, as _Alpine Mastiffs_); Anderson;[5] Richard Peacock's son, Col. Ralph Peacock [1838-1928]; (his estate sale, Knight, Frank and Rutley, London, 31 October 1928, no. 67). (Wildenstein & Co., New York).[6] Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge [1882-1973], New Jersey;[7] (her estate sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 5 December 1975, no. 54); Jonathan "Jack" Westervelt Warner [1917-2017], Tuscaloosa, Alabama; (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 4 June 1993, no. 61). private collection, Mexico City. (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 7 December 2017, no. 36); (The Matthiesen Gallery, London); purchased November 2019 by NGA. [1] "Article XXV. List of Pictures sold at the British Institution in the Exhibition of 1820, with the Names of the Purchasers etc. up to the 14th of April." _Annals of the Fine Arts_ 5, no. 16 (1820): 221. [2] At this point in the provenance the 1975 Sotheby Parke Bernet sale catalogue lists Samuel Addington (1806-1886) as the owner of the painting, by 1880. Addington was a wealthy British wool merchant, and his art and manuscript collections were dispersed at several sales both before and after his death. The 1975 catalogue says the painting was lot number 83 in the Addington estate sale of 22 May 1886. However, the size given in the 1886 sale catalogue was 18 x 24 inches, and the work was described as from the Gillott Collection, neither of which details match the NGA painting. [3] The painting was Agnew stock number 9621. See Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd. Archive, reference number NGA27, Research Centre, National Gallery, London: Agnew Picture Stock Book, 1874-1879, reference NGA27/1/1/5, p. 55, available on-line: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-centre/agnews-stock-books/reference-nga27115-1874-79, accessed 7 November 2019, copy in NGA curatorial files. [4] The copy of the sale catalogue available in the Knoedler Library _Auction Catalogues on Microfiche_ is annotated "not sold." This information was kindly confirmed by Lynda McLeod, Christie's Archives Associate Director and Librarian, in her e-mail of 15 November 2019, in NGA curatorial files. The reserve price was 2,000 guineas, and bidding only reached 1,850 guineas. [5] A copy of the sale catalogue in the NGA Library is annotated with this name as the buyer. [6] The Wildenstein name first appears connected to the painting in the catalogue of the 1975 Geraldine Dodge estate sale. Joseph Baillio of Wildenstein kindly checked the company's accessible archives, but found no record of the painting (see his e-mail of 27 January 2020, in NGA curatorial files). [7] It has not yet been determined when and from where Mrs. Dodge acquired the painting (her full name was Ethel Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge). It is possible there is mention of the acquisition in her diaries and scrapbooks, which are in the William Rockefeller family papers, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, New York (https://rockarch.org/). For an account of Mrs. Dodge's collecting, see Barbara J. Mitnick, _Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge_, Morristown, New Jersey, 2000: 96-104, 136 nn. 1-14.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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