Constant Troyon

Artist's studio; sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January 22, 1865-February 1, 1866, no. 81 (as Chien de berger)
Arthur Stevens, Brussels and Paris (acquired at the above sale)
Baron J. de Hauff Brussels (and sold: Hôtel Drouot, March 13, 1877)
The Arnhold Family Collection, London  

Louis Soullié, Peintures, pastells, aquarelles, dessins de Constant Troyon, Paris, 1900, p. 143
Arthur Hustin, Les Artistes célèbres, Constant Troyon, Paris 1893, p.58

Unlined; under UV: spot of inpainting to dog's hind leg, scattered strokes of inpainting to dog's body and to landscape, a few strokes of inpainting to horizon line and darkest colors.
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Troyon's animal paintings from the 1850s were what garnered him international fame and success; when he died in 1866, he was heralded as one of the finest animal painters of his generation.  Beginning in 1854, Troyon made annual summer visits to the home of his friend and fellow artist, Léon Félix Loysel, who lived in the Touraine.  While there, Troyon painted portraits of the hunting dogs that filled Loysel's kennels.  The most well known of this group is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (fig. 1).  Two additional paintings of Loysel's hounds appeared in Troyon's Studio sale in 1866 (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Jan. 21-23, 1866, nos. 1 and 3) (figs. 2 and 3).  One may speculate that these two works were seen by Courbet at Drouot,  as the composition is similar to the  two greyhounds on the beach that Courbet painted for the Comte de Choiseul at his Deauville villa in September 1866 (see Robert Fernier, La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, Paris, 1977,  vol. II, no. 545).

Like Troyon's paintings of cows, his canine subjects can also trace their lineage to 17^th century Dutch paintings; Troyon studied the animal paintings of Aelbert Cuyp and Paulus Potter during a trip to Holland in 1846-1847.  He may also have seen the monumental depictions of dogs by Frans Snyders, the most direct source for his canine paintings. 

Most likely, the present painting is not part of the Troyon-Loysel series, but the idea of depicting a dog as the most prominent part of the composition, may have been inspired by the Loysel works. Here we see a herding dog, whose job it was - then as it is now - to direct and corral livestock. For the setting, Troyon looks back to his own earlier landscapes such as The Ferry Crossing of 1849 (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), which also dramatized storm clouds gathering on the horizon.  He also integrates a third trademark subject - two cows - who are being pressed to return to the farm before the storm hits.  Their guide is the black and white dog, whose energy and bark are almost  palpable as he bounds across the field.