dogs playing poker

Auction Of Coolidge's Original Dogs Playing Poker January 24, 2005
Coinciding each year with the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, Doyle New York's annual Dogs in Art auction on Tuesday, February 15, 2005 at 1pm will showcase two centuries of canine paintings and sculpture by some of the genre's most important artists.
Hundreds of art collectors and dog fanciers from across the nation and around the world will vie for breed portraits that highlight a breed's characteristics, sporting paintings that illustrate a dog's working abilities, and charming pet portraits.
Highlighting this year's sale is a masterful painting of English setters by Americas finest setter painter, Percival Leonard Rosseau. Certain to attract attention, and a few smiles, is an important pair of paintings from the original 1903 series of dogs playing poker by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. The public is invited to the exhibition on view from Saturday, February 12 through Monday, February 14. Doyle is located at 175 East 87th Street in Manhattan.
"Ever since we introduced the annual Dogs in Art auction in 1999, people have jokingly asked me, 'Do you ever have paintings of dogs playing poker? heh, heh'." said Alan Fausel, Doyle New York's specialist in charge of the auction. "Well, this year we are pleased to have two of these icons of American popular culture, and the estimated 'ante' for this 'kitty' is $30,000-50,000. Coolidge's canine works have fetched as much as $70,000, and I'm not 'bluffing'!"
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844-1934)Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was born in upstate New York in 1844 to abolitionist Quaker farmers who named him after statesman Henry Clay's brother, Cassius Marcellus Clay. Known to friends and family as "Cash", Coolidge appears to have had little formal art education, yet he was already sketching cartoons for his local newspaper by the time he was twenty. An accomplished cartoonist, he is credited with creating the familiar life-size Boardwalk cutouts, which he called Comic Foregrounds, into which one's head was placed so as to be photographed as an amusing character.
In 1903, Coolidge contracted with the advertising firm of Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minnesota to create sixteen paintings of dogs in various human-like situations. Nine of these paintings depicted dogs around a card table. The pair of paintings in Doyle's February 15 auction, A Bold Bluff and Waterloo, are two of the nine original works. In A Bold Bluff, a poker-faced St. Bernard with a weak hand bluffs as the dogs lay their bets, and in Waterloo, the St. Bernard rakes in the pot much to the consternation of his fellow pooches (est. for the pair $30,000-50,000).
Percival Leonard Rosseau (1859-1937)Percival Leonard Rosseau was often invited by his patrons to hunt and paint on their estates. Most prominent among these was Percy Rockefeller, who made Rosseau a member of his hunting club at Overhills, on his estate in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Rockefeller erected a studio for Rosseau on his estate and often lent his bird dogs to Rosseau as models. Painted in 1919, On Grassy Hill, depicts two setters, Transue Bill and Glensale Harry, belonging to the Rockefeller family. As one points, the other is gracefully 'backstanding.' The entire work is handled with Rosseau's typically vibrant yet elegant brushwork (est. $50,000-70,000).
Other Notable Works Other featured paintings in the auction include an oil depicting two pointers by the German/American artist Edmund Henry Osthaus (1848-1928) (est. $40,000-60,000). Osthaus is known for his keen rendering of sporting dogs. Also included are paintings and drawings by such prominent artists as Maud Earl, George Armfield, Gustave Muss-Arnoldt, Lucy Dawson and Arthur Wardle, as well as prints by Diana Thorne and Marguerite Kirmse.
The selection of fine dog bronzes features the work of animaliers Jules Moigniez, Alfred Dubucand, and Antoine-Louis Barye, in addition to no fewer than eight works by Pierre Jules Mene. Most of the bronzes depict sporting dogs such as setters, retrievers and pointers. Complementing the fine paintings and sculpture will a variety of lots affectionately known as Dogiana. A large collection of porcelain dogs of various breeds by makers such as Royal Doulton, Rosenthal, and Royal Copenhagen will be offered, as well as dog show trophies, medals, books and dog-related ephemera.
Auction Tuesday, February 15, 2005 at 1pm
Exhibition Doyle New York, 175 East 87th Street, NYCSaturday, February 12, 10am – 5pmSunday, February 13, Noon – 5pmMonday, February 14, 10am – 6pm
Catalogue Subscriptions Department, 212-427-4141, ext. 257, subscriptions@DoyleNewYork.com
ContactAlan Fausel, 212-427-4141, ext. 238, alan@DoyleNewYork.com
Media Contact Louis LeB. Webre, Vice President, Marketing and Media, 212-427-4141, ext 232, louis@DoyleNewYork.com Images and interviews are available upon request

Auction Of Coolidge's Original Dogs Playing Poker

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Friday, May 13, 2005