KOH, John.
Dogs in Early Photography.
London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2024.
£50
US $63 €60
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Throughout history, dogs have been a subject in art; dogs were featured in cave drawings, coins, funerary sculptures or medieval marginalia. Before smartphones allowed dog owners to capture and share every moment of their dogs’ lives, fine art documented this relationship and promoted the dog from a supporting to a leading role. While Renaissance and Baroque portraiture is the first clear sign of the increasingly close emotional connection between humans and dogs, it was in the nineteenth century that this new relationship truly began to take hold, as the Industrial Revolution brought about a growing middle class and, just at this moment of enormous social change, dog-loving Queen Victoria made dog ownership prestigious and fashionable. For the first time, companion dog ownership began to transcend social class as the aristocracy and the middle and working classes embraced their new canine family members. Meanwhile, the nascent world of photography allowed dog owners to capture images of their pets, and the mass production of images made it possible at a reasonable cost. As a result, photography has had an outsized impact on the dog, its social position, and its importance to modern society.
The selections from the collection that prompted this book show a variety of dogs in settings ranging from the studio to the field and stream. They demonstrate the difficulty in capturing a moving subject in early photographic formats ranging from unique daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes in the 1850s to popular cartes de visite after the middle of the century. It also explores the physicality of the dog, the human obsession with breed, and how pet dogs came to reflect the status and personality of their owners. But most importantly, this collection celebrates the unique relationship between humans and dogs, as photographs, either purposely or accidentally, capture the charm and endless appeal of dogginess across breeds, class, roles and time.
‘This book is most eloquent in celebrating the art of collecting. Having been a librarian involved in special collections for almost 40 years (and for 35 of those a customer of Bernard Quaritch), I have never encountered such a niche collecting area so beautifully executed into a fully-fledged collection (and in such a short space of time).’ Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian.
About the author
A noted book collector, John Koh has spent years building a vast private collection of photographs and other historical ephemera, including the many nineteenth-century photographs of dogs which are presented in this new book. John Koh is the owner of Bernard Quaritch Ltd, one of London’s oldest and leading antiquarian booksellers, and has long been a friend of the Bodleian and a member of the Bodleian Advisory Board. His collection of dog photography is being donated to the Bodleian's growing collections of early photography.
