4o8 The Dog Book 



whether the one who painted this white terrier supplied something from 

 his own studies under his father or drew from some dog he happened to 

 come across is an open question. 



What we know to be facts regarding the two "Roos" paintings is that 

 the gentleman who has them has knowledge of them for forty years, they 

 having been the property of a gentleman who married into the present 

 owner's family. The elder gentleman had at that time been a widower 

 for ten years and during that period his effects had been stored away, these 

 paintings with them. The old gentleman was an American, and no one has 

 any idea where or when he got them or how long he had them before they 

 were stored, but our informant says that when he first knew them they 

 were in wide partly carved frames, and for some reason were thought a 

 good deal of. These frames gradually went to pieces, and the present 

 owner took the canvases out of what was left of them about twelve years 

 ago. When he first knew them the frames and the paintings both looked 

 very old. The Roos story came recently from a friend of his and was not 

 family history. 



We found some difficulty in getting any competent person to interest 

 himself sufficiently to give a sound opinion as to the probable age and the 

 possibility of their being the work of a foreign artist. We have seen what 

 we call "guessing" in the judges' ring at dog shows, but nothing to the 

 guessing of experts in the opinions we were favoured with. One eminent 

 authority informed us that it was impossible for them to be over twenty-five 

 years old, and that they were "copies of a well-known painting by Landseer 

 or somebody." Finally we had the good fortune to meet Mr. Royal Cortis- 

 soz, of New York, to whom we told our tale of inability to get an opinion 

 that would hold water. A kind invitation to submit the canvases to him 

 at once followed. Everybody had treated our inquiries as if we wanted to 

 boom some worthless daubs, but our new friend got our idea, which was 

 merely to get an approximate date of the painter's work. His opinion was 

 that they were English, and probably early nineteenth century, that they 

 were not the work of any good man, but some clever fellow in that particular 

 line of dog delineation not otherwise an artist. We only use one of the 

 paintings, that showing a white dog facing the right, with two red dogs 

 immediately behind it; a black-and-tan dog, head on, is running toward 

 the white dog and another black-and-tan is climbing over the overturned 

 wheelbarrow to the right, below which the rat is seeking to escape. 



