It's All Speculation!
Are you hoping to learn more about how the Beardie is
intertwined with the histories of other breeds (keeping in mind that
breed names are a modern conception)?
Hugh Dalziel, in 1879, in his book British Dogs
wrote:
Whoever would write the history of dogs must
write the history of man, for in periods as remote as history
reaches we find this animal associated with him as useful servant.
Truer words cannot likely be spoken.
Images are often relied upon for a more accurate
transmission of information when compared to verbal accounts (especially
when handed down
from generation to generation). But can images like paintings,
photographs, etc. be relied upon to draw conclusions about the origins
of any breed? The answer is "no." Often painters chose to
romanticize their subjects. But
what about numerous paintings from different artists? If the shaggy
sheepdogs appear similar in numerous paintings, then one might conclude
that such a type of shaggy shepherd's sheepdog existed.
What about photographs? Photography came into use
by the general public in the latter part of the 1800s. If a viewer goes through the entire history
section on this website, they soon realize this era was when shaggy canines
were now being identified by numerous breed names. Col. David Hancock,
a noted dog historian,
has stated that breed names are a modern concept when discussing the
history of canines.
Hopefully, a really good historian would not draw
conclusions based upon speculation, especially when their work is to be
published. Non-fiction can be defined as an
account or representation of a subject which is presented as fact. But
the problem is this: the presentation may, or may not be, accurate.
Col. Hancock wrote, in his opening paragraph to a section entitled "Pure-bred Dogs:
The Validity of the Breeds" from Chapter One, The Heritage of the Dog
(1990):
"When I read the official history of quite a
number of pedigree breeds of dog, I recall all too easily Henry
Ford's famous opinion that 'all history is bunk.' For some of these
breed histories were compiled in Victorian days when the knowledge
of some still much-quoted dog writers was really quite limited and
the inherent chauvinism of those times led to a belief sometimes
that anything worthy must have originated in Britain. There was then
a quite astonishing lack of awareness of the many varieties of
mountain dog, shepherd dog, setter and pointer, mastiff and
scent-hound which were really quite well known at that time on the
Continent."
Some authors who have written about Bearded Collies and
Old English Sheepdogs, not to mention many other breeds,
claim that the dog in the famous portrait (shown below) of
Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, painted by Thomas Gainsborough in
1771, is an early, if not the earliest, example of "their" breed. Some
individuals think the dog in the painting of Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleuch
(with her daughter and two small dogs painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in
1772), is the same dog as the one in the Duke's portrait of the previous year.
An excerpt from a Reader's Digest article states:
"An Old English Sheepdog is easily recognized alongside the Duke of Buccleuch in Gainsborough's portrait. Philip Reinagle (1749-1833) immortalized the breed with a painting that is said to be the finest of
the artist's dog portraits."
A mezzotint engraving was
done in 1771 by John Dixon of the Gainsborough painting. This dog
being held by the Duke has been called an Otterhound,
a Norfolk water-spaniel, a Beardie, an Old English sheepdog, and a
Dandie Dinmont terrier. According to Gainsborough's Dogs,
published by Gainsborough House Society (2006), page 31, it is written
"In this portrait, Gainsborough could be said to have taken the idea of
the dog as a portrait accessory to its ultimate conclusion."
The Dandie Dinmont's origin, like the Beardie, is
unknown. A Dandie Dinmont type of dog was
known to be living in both Scotland and England (primarily the
borderlands) by the mid-1700s. It is also written that the Dandie got his
generic name of Mustard Terrier or Pepper Terrier based upon the farm from where it was bred. The
"pepper" name meant different shades of gray.
So was the dog in the Duke's painting the same dog
in the Duchess' painting? Compare the dog in the Gainsborough painting
(middle top row) to the dog in the Reynolds' painting (middle bottom
row). Arguably Reynolds might have painted the dog in light colors, but
why would Reynolds have painted the dog's colors so differently from
what Gainsborough painted? In addition, looking at the size of the dog
compared to the Dachshund-like dog jumping up, it seems far more likely
the dog in the Reynolds' painting is a Dandie-Dinmont type of small dog
compared to a much larger breed.
Regarding the dog in the Duke's picture above, it
certainly could be a Beardie-like type of dog. But since there are no
written records from the Buccleuch family
describing the dog as being a particular breed, one could just as easily
speculate that it is a mongrel. Since the four pictures in the corners
below are all Dandie-Dinmont images of different types, one can easily see why there might
be confusion.
The Beardie and the Old English have
several things in common, i.e., both were identified as sheepdogs, both
have been discussed as being used as droving dogs on cattle, both have
shaggy coats, and both have been claimed as the breed appearing in the
Duke's painting. Several pictures in the "Timeline" section will
demonstrate that the Bearded Collie and the Old English were very similar in numerous photographs. Example: The Old English Sheep Dog,
in the revised edition of 1937 by Henry Arthur Tilley, has a dustcover
with a drawing by artist Nora Drummond (also known as Nora Drummond
Davis, 1862-1949). It would be difficult to convince any Bearded Collie
owner that this shaggy dog on the cover of Tilley's book is anything but
a Bearded Collie.
What about other pictures from this era?
A chalk sketch of two dogs was made by
Gainsborough c.1780s. It was named Tristram and Fox. This is
different than his oil on canvas entitled "Two Dogs called 'Tristram
and Fox'", c. 1775. In 1827, Richard J. Lane (1800-1872) did a
lithograph of the Gainsborough chalk sketch. One of the
dogs in this sketch appears very Beardie-like.
Thomas
Gainsborough not only sketched and painted landscapes, he collected them
for use in his own home. Therefore, most of them were never for sale
until after his death. He had seen landscape works done by seventeenth-century
Dutch painters — artists like Hobbema, Jacob van Ruisdael, etc. In fact, he copied and repaired some of
those paintings. It is reported that he exhibited his work annually at his London
residence from 1784 until his death in August 1788.
A study exists from 1783, which was bought
in 2000 by Spink-Leger. It was entitled "Study for Upland Landscape." Gainsbrough used
this study in 1784 to paint an oil on canvas entitled
"Landscape with Shepherd and Flock." This painting is located in
the Munich art museum Neue Pinakothek. What is interesting about this
painting is the dog standing next to the shepherd. If one visits the
museum's website and prints out the larger version of the painting, one
can easily see that the dog resembles a stumpy-tailed Bearded Collie
when enlarged in a program like Photoshop. There
was, and is, a strain of Beardies called "stumpies." A few
stumpies are still being
bred as recently as the year 2005. Also, there are many sheepdogs
that had their tails docked besides the Old English. But to say the dog
below is a Beardie is nothing more than speculation.
Gainsborough also painted on glass. One of his
paintings "Open Landscape with Shepherd, Sheep and Pool" is in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. It is dated "About 1786." According to the
museum, Gainsborough's rough copy of this composition was made in reverse
to the actual painting. The Gainsborough glass painting collection never
leaves the Victoria and Albert Museum due to its being too fragile to
withstand shipping. Looking at an enlarged view of a section
of the painting, one sees the outline of a Beardie-like dog. It
has a blackish coat, with white on the face, tail, around its collar, and on at least one leg. One needs a
magnifying glass to see this, but hopefully the viewer can see in the
image below that the
shepherd is sitting down. The painting is only partially presented here. The Beardie-like
dog may have just been commanded to go out and round up the flock as the
sheep in the entire picture seem to be moving in a northwesterly direction
in relationship to the dog (assuming that the dog was heading northward
at the beginning of its outrun.) But again, it is only speculation that
this is an early representation of a Beardie-like dog.
John Constable also painted images in some of his
paintings that appear to be beardie-like. A close examination of the
paintings was needed in order to demonstrate this to others. A close up
view of the painted beardie-like dogs will be shown in the "Timeline"
section.
On the subject of drover dogs, there is at least
one print from the past showing a possible beardie-like dog being
used to drive cattle. This dog had a white-tipped tail, white on its breast and foreface, and on all four legs. Of course, the shaggy
coat is missing from the outline of the dog. However, by the vegetation seen on the ground, one
realizes it is a warm-weathered month (which is the time the cattle were
normally driven from north to south). This means that the dog's coat
was likely clipped down. Several dogs owned by shepherds on this website
have their coats clipped down, or shaved, when the sheep were shorn. But whether
this dog was a beardie is speculation. The artist is unknown, but
the full image appeared in A. R. B. Haldane's book, entitled The Drove Roads of Scotland (in
the 1953
reprinting of the 1952 first edition).
Major Logan mentioned the artist Leitch in his
chapter "The Bearded Collie: Origins and Early History" located at the
back of Suzanne Moorhouse's book Talking about Beardies...
(1990). This artist, William Leighton Leitch (1804-1883), was born in
Scotland. Like many other artists, he moved to London (around his
mid-20's). Logan was likely talking about an image appearing in A. R. B.
Haldane's book, entitled The Drove Roads of Scotland (in the 1973
edition). This image did not appear in the 1953 edition. A portion
of the image appears below. The outline of the dog to the right of
the shepherd in his kilt does not
demonstrate it to be the outline of a Beardie. Again, one has to be
careful about believing everything that has been written.
Vere Temple was an illustrator and the author of a
book entitled An Artist Goes to the Dogs, published in 1937. Her sheepdog certainly appears almost identical to merle Beardies still being produced by some
individuals in the U.K. even today. The viewer
clearly can see how similar some of the breeds were or are.
Until the website goes live, these images will
remain a sample of what is yet to come.
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