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Lot Essay
Briton Rivière was a leading animal painter, and was particularly interested in depicting the interactions between man and beast. These were often backdropped by scenes from the English Civil War.
The present lot displays the faithful dog yearning for his master, burrowing himself into his master’s cloak, which has been left on his chair. Riviére's biographer Walter Armstrong describes his strength as, ‘his sympathy with animals… He paints them for what they are, a symbol of what man was once, the rough material of civilisation with virtues and vices yet unblunted by convention... His interest, in fact, is in the animal's real self.' (Walter Armstrong, Briton Riviére, Royal Academician, His Life and Work, special edition of The Art Annual, 1891, p. 24).
The present lot displays the faithful dog yearning for his master, burrowing himself into his master’s cloak, which has been left on his chair. Riviére's biographer Walter Armstrong describes his strength as, ‘his sympathy with animals… He paints them for what they are, a symbol of what man was once, the rough material of civilisation with virtues and vices yet unblunted by convention... His interest, in fact, is in the animal's real self.' (Walter Armstrong, Briton Riviére, Royal Academician, His Life and Work, special edition of The Art Annual, 1891, p. 24).