Jack on porch of Satterly house 1899The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Americans love dogs.

Whether in the nineteenth century or today, anyone observing the daily activity in our streets, sidewalks, yards, and neighborhoods will find dogs and their human companions. They serve as beloved family pets, guard homes from pests and strangers, accompany hunters and farmers as they work, and participate in sports and competitions. Their constant presence in our lives has made them natural subjects for artists, advertisers, and photographers. The Long Island Museum’s collections reflect two centuries of these interactions between people and pooches.                                                                                                                                              Jack on porch of Satterly House,Main Street, Setauket, NY, 1899 Photographic print on board. Bequest of Robert Bradley Fritz, 2005. 

Bennett Family with Queeny, West Meadow BeachThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Artists such as William Sidney Mount, William Moore Davis, and Alexander Kruse carefully observed daily life on Long Island in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, depicting dogs as they relaxed, played, and accompanied their owners everywhere. With few exceptions, dogs were rarely the main focus of these works of art, but nonetheless were a ubiquitous part of the local landscape. Dogs gain greater prominence by the early twentieth century with the growth of studio and personal photography. And as Long Island shifted from a rural to a suburban place in the mid-twentieth century, family snapshots capture dogs as beloved pets with lives of leisure.                                                                                                                                                                                            Bennett Family with dog Queeny, West Meadow Beach in Stony Brook, NY, c.1945.  Reproduction from Kodachrome slide.             Gift of Eleanor Carol Bennett, N. Babylon, NY, 2009.

Esquimaux DogThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Sidney Mount,  Esquimaux Dog, 1859,      Oil
on panel

Bequest of Ward Melville, 1977. William Sidney Mount painted several portraits of dogs during his career, with this the only known surviving example. As he wrote in his diary, “July 4th, 1858, I made a drawing on canvass of Mr. Copcutt’s horse. 5th – painted the horse and dog. 6th – dead colored his dog standing up in a chair. 8th – painted on the dog.” Francis Copcutt was an English-born writer and lumber dealer living in New York. This painting of Copcutt’s dog, Neptune, was sold to a third party after being exhibited at the National Academy of Design. In exchange for five books and a “flood” of mahogany panels, Mount painted a different oil sketch for Copcutt of Neptune in 1865, after the dog had passed away. Copcutt’s “Esquimaux Dog” closely resembles what is now called a Canadian Eskimo Dog – an extremely rare breed in America then and now.     

Mischievous DropThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Sidney Mount
Mischievous Drop, 1857
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville, 1955.

With an alert dog underfoot, a girl is about to drop a few cherries into the mouth of a sleeping boy. William Sidney Mount painted "Mischievous Drop" for friend and fellow artist John M. Falconer in New York City for $150. The following year it was one of six paintings that Mount exhibited at the National Academy of Design, where both men were members. Eager to reclaim his new painting, Falconer wrote to Mount on July 6th that “Good Mrs. Crocker gave me the Mischievous Drop off the Walls of the Academy twenty minutes before the exhibition closed. I posted home with it and put it on the wall where I feel sure it looks better, and if not admired by so many it will have a more thorough appreciation from the few.”

Deacon Riding Ashwood at the SaddleThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Deacon
Riding Ashwood at the Saddle, c.1901

Lithograph                        

Gift of Ward Melville, 1962. These two unusual prints celebrate the brief fame of Ashwood and Deacon. Thomas Clark of Marion, NY, purchased a stallion named Ashwood in Indiana in 1897, and the following year entered him in races at county fairs in western New York. Clark soon trained his horse to go around the track without a guide or driver – making Ashwood into a “Guideless Wonder.” Around 1900 Clark created a new trick: he trained his bulldog Deacon to ride in a wire cage attached to either a saddle on Ashwood or to a cart that he pulled. As the Newark-Union Gazette recalled in 1912 in Ashwood’s obituary, “The novelty of a bull dog riding or driving a horse appealed to everybody, and Tom Clark and his famous guideless wonder, now driven by a bull dog, was billed at every fair of any consequence in Central and Western New York and also in northern towns of Pennsylvania.” After four seasons of performing, Clark retired the act.        

Deacon Riding Ashwood at the BikeThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Deacon Riding Ashwood at the Bike, c.1901, lithograph, Gift of Ward Melville, 1962

Boy with Rat TrapThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Unidentified Artist
Boy with Rat Trap, 1828
Oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. Ward Melville


A boy kneels in the hay on a barn floor, teasing four dogs with a rat caught in a trap. While perhaps uncomfortable to think about today, killing vermin was an important job on farms for these dogs, which are ancestors of modern day terriers, pit bulls, and spaniels.

Boys with Dog at WoodshedThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Moore
Davis, Boys with Dog at Woodshed, n.d., Oil
on board

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville, 1976. A late contemporary of William Sidney Mount, William Moore Davis (1829 - 1920) became a full-time painter in the final years of Mount’s career. Davis spent most of his life in Port Jefferson where he painted the local landscape and genre scenes such as this painting. Two boys have finally found their dog that managed to break the cord tying him to an old copper kettle intended as an anchor to keep him from wandering off. Davis’s use of a woodshed in the title and setting implies some sort of imminent punishment for the wayward dog.    

baby with terrier and toy dog circa 1920 - 600 dpiThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Baby with Terrier and Toy Dog, c.1920
Photographic print

On Their Way to the DanceThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Moore
Davis,  On Their Way to the Dance, n.d.,  oil
on canvas and board 

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville, 1976. Dogs brave all types of weather with their owners. Here, an African-American musician and a boy make their way to a dance at a nearby inn or tavern. The dog’s leash is tied to the rope around the man’s waist. Under his arm is a banjo wrapped in cloth to protect it from the cold and moisture.    

The MowerThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Sidney
Mount (1807-1868),  The Mower, or Man with Scythe, c.1867, oil
on panel  

Depicting a coastal meadow likely in Setauket or Stony Brook, an African-American farmer sharpens his scythe as a woman arrives with a lunch pail and a dog. A hand tool for farmers to mow grass and harvest crops, the scythe is also a traditional symbol of death and mortality. And though Mount had no way of knowing, his own death would come about a year later, in 1868. 

 

Frederick L. Johanns with WolfhoundThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Frederick L. Johanns Jr. with Irish Wolfhound, 1914
Photographic print on paper
Gift of Carolyn Johanns Fell and Elizabeth Johanns, 1996

Fair Exchange No RobberyThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Sidney Mount,  Fair Exchange, No Robbery, 1865, oil
on panel 

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ward Melville, 1958. This farm collie looks on skeptically as his owner decides to trade hats with a scarecrow. Originating in the United Kingdom as herding dogs, collies arrived in America with the first English and Scottish settlers in the seventeenth century. Born decades before the rise of standardized breeds, this dog closely resembles today’s Welsh Sheepdog and Smooth Border Collie.         

Tiger, the Chum DogThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Shepard Alonzo Mount

Tiger, The Chum Dog, n.d.

Pencil
on heavy paper 

Bequest of Ward Melville, 1977. One of William Sidney Mount’s three older brothers, Shepard was also trained as a painter and eventually settled permanently in Stony Brook on their family farm. Shepard gained renown for his portraits of Long Island’s leading citizens, but he also painted genre scenes, landscapes, and fish and game. This sketch of Tiger was likely drawn from life, and may have either been simply practice for a dedicated artist, or an idea to later incorporate into a painting.  

Vet Trade SignThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Veterinarian Trade Sign, c.1875
Wood and paint
Gift of Louis Weickum, 1956


While its original location is unknown, this sign would have clearly identified the office of a veterinarian to passersby in late nineteenth century New York. The first professionally trained veterinarians arrived in the United States from Europeans schools in the early nineteenth century. Private veterinary schools opened in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia by the 1850s, primarily focusing on horses due to their economic importance. The American Veterinary Medical Association formed in New York in 1863 to advocate for the growing field, with members both professionally educated and self-taught. A Mastiff, Saint Bernard, and American Staffordshire Terrier on this trade sign announce this veterinarian as specializing in dogs. In the late nineteenth century a growing American middle class increasingly embraced dogs as family pets.

Bicycle ParkingThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Alexander Z. Kruse,  Bicycle Parking, Fire Island, 1969, Oil
on canvas 

Gift of Bettijune Kruse in memory of Benedict W. Kruse (1925-2001) and Martin A. Kruse (1951-1998), 2007. Born in Manhattan in 1888, Alexander Kruse was a student of the Ashcan School, studying under George Bellows, John Sloan, Henry McBride, and other artists. Moving to Brooklyn in the 1920s, Kruse eventually taught at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, served as an art critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for more than twenty years, and had a regular column in the New York Post, “Art with a Small ‘A’”. Kruse also authored the popular book, How to Draw and Paint (1953). His own prints, drawings, and paintings encompass scenes of daily life in the streets of New York City, Fire Island, and Los Angeles, where he eventually died in 1972. This painting of a bicycle parking lot on Fire Island includes a person in a t-shirt and overalls walking a dog on a leash. The small detail represents the modern status of dogs on Long Island: as beloved pets that we take on daily walks in our urban and suburban homes, and that often join us on vacation as members of the family.     

Preview of Meadow Brook HuntThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Perhaps the most dramatic activity involving dogs on Long Island was foxhunting.

 The Meadow Brook Hounds (1881-1971), Suffolk Hounds (1902-1942), and Smithtown Hunt (1900-present) operated in Nassau and Suffolk counties from the late-nineteenth into the twenty-first century. These clubs organized riders, horses, and packs of hounds to chase either a fox or a trail of scent (as Smithtown Hunt exclusively does now) dragged across the landscape just before a hunt.            

Meadow Brook HuntThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Gustav Muss-Arnolt,  Meadow Brook Hunt, 1885, oil
on canvas 

Gift of August Belmont IV, 1978. August Belmont Jr. was one of the founders of the Meadow Brook Club (later the Meadow Brook Hounds) in 1881 in Garden City to promote fox hunting and other outdoor sports. In the fall of 1884, while serving as acting Master of the Hunt, Belmont commissioned Gustav Muss-Arnolt to paint the young club. Completed in 1885, the New York artist captured in painstaking detail the participants in the hunt and the location. An accompanying key identified twenty-seven people by name – including future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt – the names of twenty-one of their horses, and the names of twelve of the more than two dozen English Foxhounds. The Meadow Brook Hounds continued to hold regular live foxhunts in Nassau and Suffolk counties until disbanding in 1971.    

Klein Fox HoundsThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Carl Klein, "The Smithtown Fox Hounds," 1927" Photographic
prints on board                               

Gift of Sally Huntington, 1954. Carl Klein was a twenty-five year old Hungarian immigrant and commercial photographer when he took the first of these photos of the Smithtown Hunt. Founded the same year of Klein’s birth, the Smithtown Hunt competed with the older Meadow Brook Hounds (established 1881) for territory in Suffolk County to conduct their own foxhunts and drag hunts. The former involved hounds and riders chasing a fox over the countryside until its escape or capture, while a drag hunt involved hounds and riders chasing a scent laid down along a chosen route by dragging a bag of anise seed. “Mr. Martin Tayler’s” was the estate of lawyer Martin Taylor along the Nissequogue River in Nissequogue, while “Mr. Ely’s” was likely Lyme House, the estate of David Jay Ely in Hauppauge.

While suburban development has substantially changed the Long Island landscape since the 1920s, the Smithtown Hunt endures and now exclusively practices drag hunting.      

Klein Fox Hounds 2The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

“The Smithtown Fox Hounds, Mr. Martin Tayler’s,
November 26th 1925”
Photographic print on board
Gift of Sally Huntington, 1954

Man with Pomeranian c 1910The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Man with Pomeranian on Bench, c.1910
Photographic print

Study of Dog for Mutual RespectThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

William Sidney Mount
Study of Dog for Mutual Respect, 1867
Pencil on paper
Bequest of Ward Melville, 1977


William Sidney Mount noted in his diary on December 7, 1867 that he completed a painting called Mutual Respect. The genre painting depicted a dog in a farm yard, eyeing a boy who is walking by with firewood that he just chopped. Mount would have created this sketch earlier in the year as he designed the painting’s composition.

Woman with Saint Bernard in Brooklyn c1890The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Irving Charles Pardee
Woman with Saint Bernard, c.1890
Brooklyn, NY
Photographic print on board

Ernest Zierden with Jack Russell terrierThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Ernest Blaine Zierden
with their Jack Russell Terrier, 1900
Star Studio, Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania
Photographic prints on board
Museum Collection


Brothers Ernest (age 7) and Leonard (age 3) take turns posing for a photographer with the family’s Jack Russell Terrier in March 1900. While the boards for each photograph are embossed with the names of different studios in Johnsonburg, the boys pose with an identical wicker chair and tassel blanket and appear to be in the same place. They were the two eldest boys among nine children born to William and Ella Zierden between 1889 and 1907. After living around the country and serving in the military, both Ernest and Leonard eventually settled in Los Angeles, where they passed away in 1970 and 1955 respectively.

Leonard A Zierden with Jack Russell terrierThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Leonard Nicholas Zierden
with Jack Russell Terrier, 1900
JYL Photo Studio (right),
Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania
Photographic prints on board
Museum Collection

Three hand painted bridle ornamentsThe Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Three Bridle Ornaments with hand-painted
English Setter and English Foxhounds, n.d.
Brass, glass, paint

Lap Robe with Golden Retriever, n.d.The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Lap Robe with Golden Retriever, n.d., wool, glass, and dye 

Whether riding in a sleigh, carriage, or early automobile, passengers were often exposed to the elements. In wintertime, thick wool lap robes such as this one were indispensable in keeping people warm and dry. The bright warm colors offered a cheery counterpoint to a drab winter palette, and this golden retriever imparts a friendly disposition upon the wearer. 

Martha Louise Huhle Knill and Lumpy, c.1916The Long Island Museum of American Art, History, & Carriages

Martha Louise Huhle Knill and Lumpy,
c.1916

Photographic
print on board  

Gift of Carol Knill-Maniscalo, 2005. Martha Louise Knill (née Huhle) of Manhattan was around two years old when she and Lumpy, the family dog, posed in a photographer’s studio. Martha’s father, Hans Huhle, was a machinist and built the toy carriage. Her mother Alvina was a dressmaker and likely made her outfit. Toy carriages pulled by dogs or goats were a common form of play for families with either the skill to build a tiny wagon, or the money to purchase one. And from a young age it taught the valuable skills of how to tack up an animal and then drive the wagon. Martha passed away in 2004 in Locust Valley, eight days before her ninetieth birthday.       

Credits: Story

Exhibition Title: Dog Days: Portraits of Man's Best Friend

Curated by: The Long Island Museum of Art, History, & Carriages

Credits: All media
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