Retrievers with a Hare

Retrievers with a Hare (1870) captures the working relationship between hunting dogs and their quarry in a characteristic Landseer composition — the dogs not hunting but holding or delivering the hare, the act of hunting just past, the scene poised in the moment after the retrieve. Dundee Art Galleries and Museums holds this canvas as part of their British art collection, where Landseer's animal paintings occupy a distinct place within the Victorian sporting art tradition. Retrievers as a dog type were relatively new in 1870 — the breed had been developed in the nineteenth century specifically for retrieving game without damaging it. Landseer's choice of retrievers rather than older hunting breeds reflects his consistent interest in depicting specifically observed dogs rather than generic hunting hounds.

Canvas with Landseer's practiced confidence in rendering different fur textures — the retriever's dense, slightly wavy coat against the hare's finer, denser fur — alongside the compositional challenge of arranging dogs and prey in a convincing spatial relationship.