CIRCA 1900

The Hellenistic sculpture the 'Dog of Alcibiades' was modelled on a Molossian dog, ancestor of the modern mastiff. Henry Constantine Jennings of Shiplake (1731-1819) acquired the only known Roman copy of the lost 2nd century Hellenistic bronze original during his stay in Rome between 1753 and 1756 where he is said to have “rescued” it from a pile of rubble in the Roman sculpture workshop of Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (1716-1799) for a total of 400 saidi. Jennings referred to the sculpture the 'Dog of Alcibiades', after the Athenian statesman who according to the Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch, owned a large, handsome dog whose tail was "his principal ornament". Alcibiades cut off the dog’s tail and when told that "all Athens" felt pity for the dog, laughed and said "I wished the Athenians to talk about this, that they might not say something worse of me". Though the original and subsequent copies do not lack tails, it was Jennings's hope to associate the figure with the cachet of ancient Greek civilisation and he brought the Roman sculpture back to England, where the dog was greatly publicised and where it was soon considered a sign of true gentlemanly taste to own a copy of the model — making "a most noble appearance in a gentleman's hall" according to the great essayist and critic Dr Samuel Johnson. By 1816, Jennings found himself in debt and forced to sell his dog stating, "A fine dog it was, and a lucky dog was I to purchase it". Bought at auction by Rt Hon Charles Duncombe, the model stood for 150 years by the entrance to the great historic house Duncombe Park, Yorkshire. Jennings's original now resides in the British Museum, London where it is titled “The Jennings Dog / The Duncombe Dog / The Dog of Alcibiades” (inv. 2001,1010.1).