Lot 19: William Frank Calderon (British, 1865-1943)

A Lady of Quality - A Borzoi on a chaise longue
signed and dated 'W. Frank Calderon-1913' (lower left)
oil on canvas
30 7/8 x 48 in. (78 x 122 cm.)
Painted in 1913.

London, Royal Academy, 1913, no. 417.

with The Baillie Gallery, London.
Private Collection, France.

The Borzoi (known until 1936 as the Russian Wolfhound) created a sensation in England at the end of the 19th Century when Queen Alexandra was given one, named Alex, by her brother-in-law, Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Queen was greatly loved by her subjects and was a passionate advocate of animal welfare and a great supporter of the R.S.P.C.A. She entered many of her dogs into shows and Alex was her most exhibited dog. He won over one hundred awards, including the famous 500 Guinea Dohlpur Gold Cup in 1910.

Compared with other breeds, the Borzoi has had a relatively short history in Britain, first being mentioned in English literature around 1812. It is a sight hound which had been bred by the aristocracy in Russia for hundreds of years before first being imported to England. It was used to hunt wolves and in the late 19th Century the Russian royal hunting parties would often set off to hunt in a train with as many as forty cars. There would be as many as one hundred Borzois in the hunting party with an equal number of Foxhounds and as many attendants. In pre-revolutionary Russia, ownership of the Borzoi was the privilege of the imperial court and the grand dukes. Tsar Nicholas II kept fourteen men to train his Borzois and it was not unusual for his kennels to house forty to sixty adult dogs, with as many puppies. Since the Russian and British royal families of the time were directly related it is not surprising that a considerable number of dogs were imported from Russia and the Russian royal family even exhibited dogs in England.

The Duchess of Manchester was the first to exhibit an example of the breed at a dog show in Britain at Birmingham in 1863. They were immediately popular and eight years later, at the Crystal Palace, there was an entire class for the breed. The Duchess of Newcastle, another famous owner of the time, became renowned for her support of the Borzoi and in 1896 John Emms painted a vast canvas (77 x 64 in.) depicting three of her Champion dogs Tsritsa, Milka and Vikhra (The Kennel Club).

William Frank Calderon was a painter of portraits, landscapes, figure subjects and sporting pictures. He was the third son of Philip Hermogenes Calderon, R.A. (1833-1898). Educated at the Slade School under Professor Le Gros, he became the Founder and Principal of the School of Animal Painting, 1894-1916. The school was of great influence and many of the 20th Century horse painters studied there. Among his students were Cecil Aldin, Lionel Edwards (see lots 1 and 57), Lady Helena Gleichen (see lot 21), Frederick Whiting and C.E. Studdy, besides a good many who, with already-established reputations, came to him from time to time for the special purpose of studying animals. The present work is painted during the golden period of the belle époque before World War I started and is an exuberant and grand example of the grandeur and luxury of the period. In 1914, Calderon had to close down the School at the outbreak of the war. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1881 and 1921 and his first Royal Academy picture, Feeding the Hungry, was purchased by Queen Victoria for £12. He had a thorough understanding of anatomy and in 1936 he published Animal Painting and Anatomy. He obtained a Gold Medal at the Paris Salon in 1906 for a picture, Passive Resistance, which was afterwards exhibited and sold at the International in Rome. One of his most important pictures, The crest of the hill, was bought by the Queensland Government for the National Gallery of Brisbane.