Here is one of the best watercolour dog paintings I have ever acquired and it is so frustrating I can not read the assured signature bottom left. It is a painting of a Hovawart, a German working breed by a very fine hand.

I had to rescue it from a damaged frame and from an owner who had been intending to reframe it and when I looked at it without the marked glass restricting the view, the quality absolutely rang out! Everyone who has seen it agrees it is by a professional hand and when buying art, never be fooled that it should be easy to research an artist if they are of professional quality. It often is not. Playing the 'name game' is easy when researching a work but many commercial, London dealers I know have plan chests full of obscure works sometimes unattributed but technically of the very finest quality which they can only wait for an opportunity to sell when all avenues of enquiry are exhausted. To a man and woman, we all know it does not ever lessen the quality of a painting even though we know the extra zeros added to value a piece are only applicable when the history of the artist is known.

This is a fine quality watercolour of a beautiful Hovawart. Masterly technique possibly at one time commissioned, who knows? I hope the photographs do it justice but knowing some of the blue-chip names who have painted dogs over the last couple of centuries having had the privilege to see many in the flesh, this work easily sits amongst them in terms of quality and in fact betters many of the loftily named pieces I have seen go through auction at ten times the price I am putting on this work. I hope I am not insulting a quality artist?

Size 12 inches x 9 inches
30.4 cm x 22.8 cm

Mounted 16 inches x 13.25 inches
40.6 cm x 33.6 cm