Hasta La Ideas

(Photo: Christie’s)

Has Christie’s gone to the dogs? It depends on your point of view. At today’s sale of American furniture and folk art, a stoic terracotta bloodhound named “Hereward” sold for $27,500 (including buyer’s premium). Of course, this wasn’t just any jowly statue but the work of renowned sculptor Edward Kemeys, who you may know best as the creator of the two bronze lions that flank the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago. Christie’s catalog notes that Kemeys, a self-taught artist, decided to give sculpture a try while working as a civil engineer in the construction of Central Park where, in 1868, he was inspired by a German artist modeling the head of a wolf. As for this canine specimen, the auction house’s best guess is that it was “a privately commissioned portrait of a prized pet bloodhound” named for Hereward the Wake, “an 11th-century soldier who played a celebrated role in the Anglo-Saxon resistance of Norman rule in England.” OK, but “Here, Hereward!” is still a bit of a tongue twister.

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