Artists renditions: deceiving?

March 15, 2024

Artists renditions: deceiving?

This is a topic I have been itching to talk about for quite some time, but haven't quite gotten around to covering. No time like the present I say!

Mrs Foster was an influential figure in the pug breed during the late 1800s/early 1900s. Her name is one that will commonly crop up in discussions of the fancy from that period- and not without good reason. She will get her own page on this blog eventually. For now: I want to talk about one her dogs. The famous Bradford Ruby.

This is a somewhat infamous illustration that I have seen used by proponents of the ludicrous "eternal standard" theory in order to justify their ill-informed views. As much as I advocate for historical preservation being widely available to the public, it's a double edged sword when there are those with an agenda willing to present images without proper context.

I'll go into this myth more in depth at a later date, but the crux of their argument is that the pug has remained unchanged and the modern phenotype has prevailed throughout history.

It should go without saying that a breed which predates the invention of the light bulb has a rich and varied past that is often messy and doesn't ascribe to our modern outlook on what a dog should look like. The trend toward the extreme "monkey face" we see today didn't begin until at least the 1920s. But if this is true, why does Bradford Ruby resemble many of the present champions in the ring?

The short answer? He doesn't.

The drawing that accompanied the January 1885 issue of the American Kennel Register portrays a dog much more wrinkled and short faced than the one which existed in reality. Whether down to the heavy black shading, the angle, or even just human error, the end result is the same: an artists rendition that cannot, and should not, be relied upon wholly to illustrate the breed standard of that time.

Here are some real photographs of Bradford Ruby in all of his glory. He was much cleaner faced and with a greater length of muzzle than you would be led to believe. "Kash", a champion at the beginning of the 20th Century, looks near identical aside from differences in markings.