19th Century Horse & Dog Painting

The painting hanging on the wall of the country house has always intrigued me. Definetly it belongs to the mid 19th early 20th Century tradition of horse paintings. Horse art became a major genre in the British decorative painting in the 19th century. Themes by equestrian and hunting horses and scenes became very popular - and also owners of great horses wanted their animals painted. Also the first class French artists like Degas, Delacroix and Manet contributed to the scene.

However the most visible - as a cultural phenomenon - were hundreds and hundreds of paintings by English artists like Ben Marshall, John Frederick Herring and many more which produced paintings as their main artistic theme. Often scenes of the horses were presented in Romantic landscapes.

One sub-niché of this popular theme were to portrait horses and dogs together. It took of with the fox hunting scenes to the typical stall pictures which is presented in the picture in our wall.

Popular genre in 19th century English painting tradition were to portray dogs with horses

Dog and horse resting in the stalls.

Horses, as we know, are one of the oldest themes in the history of art. The first known man-made paintings picturing horses date back to 16,000 years to the cave paintings in Lascaux, France. Rock carvings of both animals date back even more - the dog, as we know, is man's most oldest "house" animal.

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