What breed turns up most often?

Sighthounds are the one breed group with enough presence to show in the counts. Greyhound appears in ten titles, with whippets, borzois and Italian greyhounds alongside them. Sporting dogs follow: setters, pointers, gun dogs and hounds, usually in the French bronzes. Hunting appears in 14 titles. Beyond that, pugs, Pekingese, Scotties, Alsatians and St Bernards all appear, but in ones and twos.

Why are so many listed only as 19th century?

Because a cast bronze rarely dates itself. Forty listings carry '19th Century' rather than a decade, and six say only 'Victorian', so roughly a quarter sits on a hundred-year span. Where decades are given, the 1930s lead with 22 listings, then the 1880s with 14.

Are Foo dogs actually dogs?

No. They are Chinese guardian lions, and the name Foo dog is a Western trade term that stuck. The Japanese equivalent is the shishi. They were made as facing pairs, and pairs are how they generally come up: thirteen Chinese titles and ten mentioning Foo, in wood, stone, jade and bronze.

How is spelter different from bronze?

Spelter is a zinc alloy, cast as a cheaper stand-in for bronze. It appears mostly in the Art Deco group. In what has sold, spelter and bronzed plaster pieces sit low in the range, while cast bronze occupies over half the category and reaches much higher.

What is the Dog of Alcibiades?

An antique marble molossian hound, also called the Jennings Dog, copied repeatedly by Grand Tour workshops for travellers buying souvenirs after the antique. It recurs across the archive in marble, green serpentine and bronze, dated between 1850 and 1890, and often as a pair.

Do many dealers specialise in dog sculpture?

Hardly any. Around 20 come up a year on Sellingantiques, and 80 different dealers have handled them, close to one dealer per listing. So the category is spread thin across general dealers rather than held by a handful of specialists.

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Antique Dog Sculptures

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Free-standing models of dogs, mostly a foot or less high, made for a mantelpiece, desk or hall table, and cast in bronze more often than anything else.