Page 33 - Chinese Export Art Christie's New York, Jan 21, 2016

THE SOWELL COLLECTION

50
A RARE MASSIVE SEATED HOUND
18TH CENTURY
His coat in grey, his breast white, his collar with tassels and bell
21 º in. (54 cm.) high
$50,000-80,000

PROVENANCE:

Phillips London, June 2001.

LITERATURE:

op. cit., pp. 165, no. 11.5
Packs of hounds for foxhunting or coursing had been trained and kept in England
from as early as about 1600, and English hunting hounds were famous as hunting
dogs within Europe. As the English East India companies began to trade in the
Far East English hounds became an important commodity for them too. In 1614
Captain Saris wrote recommending a “...fine greyhound...” as tribute for the
Daimyo of Hirado and the same year the Governor of Surat requested from the
East India Company “...looking glasses, figures of beasts or birds made of glass,
mastiffs, greyhounds, spaniels and little dogs...” (See W. Heinemann, Dogs of
China and Japan in Nature and Art, London 1921.)