809 - G. Rienäcker, dog portrait of a seated black and tan spaniel, animal painting

G. Rienäcker, dog portrait of a seated black and tan spaniel, animal painting Oil/panel, circa 1900, signed 'G. Rienäcker' lower left. Portrait of a small long-haired dog of the King Charles Spaniel type, seated frontally and facing the viewer. The coat deep black with red-brown markings on the muzzle and chest, the long ears falling far down, the large dark eyes with a bright highlight. The ground in a warm ochre and brown tone, lightened to pale yellow behind the head so that the dark silhouette stands out clearly. Age-appropriate condition, retouching, rubbed. Image 49 x 40 cm (HxW). Framed in a black profiled moulding with a gold-coloured inner edge, frame slightly bumped, frame width 8 cm. Around 1900 the dog portrait was a commissioned genre in its own right: the dog was depicted not as a specimen of its kind but as an individual with a name and a character, in the pictorial language of the bourgeois portrait with a neutral ground and a gaze towards the viewer. King Charles Spaniels had been among the preferred companion dogs of the European nobility since the 17th century and were painted again and again from Anthony van Dyck to Edwin Landseer; in the late 19th century the breed found its way into the affluent middle class. The choice of a wooden panel rather than canvas corresponds to the practice of small-format portrait commissions, which allowed a smooth, highly detailed manner of painting.