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Saturday 12 April 2014

A-Z Challenge 2014 - 'K'


K - King Charles Spaniel, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

I don't thing I have ever seen either of these dogs and had to refer to a dog book to establish which was which, Even now I am not sure when I look at the photos/pictures that I've found, The breed probably originated in Japan but has been made famous by its association with King Charles II (1630-1685)


King Charles Spaniels on Great S Bay, Long Island
(By David Shankbone - CC BY-SA 3.0)
King Charles and Cavalier King Charles appear in many paintings. One of my favourites shows two King Charles disputing the ownership of what looks like a parasol.

King Charles Spaniels - A Dispute
by Benno Adams (1812-1892)
I guess it is only right that I should include a painting from the Royal Collection.

King Charles II of England with his spaniel
by Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641)
Other Royalty who owned spaniels included Princess Victoria of Kent (later Queen Victoria) whose dog was named 'Dash'. The Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia's dog was 'Jimmy.'

However Mark Twain called a painting which included a King Charles, "the foulest; the vilest; the obscenest picture that the world possesses." In view of that I'll just show the detail cropped from the Google Art Project,

Detail from the Venus of Urbino 
by Titian 1538
Despite all these paintings modern media enables us to see a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy named Lacey encountering a mirror for the first time



Video by jelene (Jelene Morris) - CC BY 2,0

13 comments:

Bish Denham said...

The puppy is adorable!

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Bob .. love the paintings .. for some reason King Charles' aren't my most favourite of dogs ...

You asked re Newquay .. it's a coloured illustration I found at my mother's and thought useful for my A-Z .. so I iphoned it! I have a painting from Perranporth beach that's going to be coming up under R ... also to be iphoned!

(In brackets and said very quietly it'd good if you could email me .. so I could just 'quietly' reply that way ..?)

Anyway .. I knew Queen Vic had a King Charles .. cheers and have a lovely weekend with the cheerier weather - Hilary

21 Wits said...

What a wonderful post! I especially enjoyed your opening photo, and your closing! So cute.

21 Wits said...

Oh, I believe my cocker-spaniel Allie enjoyed it too, as she barked back!

Unknown said...

Lots of pics of these on my blog, Bob. I think you'll find that a King Charles is usually more dish faced than a Cavalier, having been cross bred with Pugs. Cavs normally have longer snouts like the royal ones in the 17th century paintings.

LittleCely said...

These are beautiful dogs. Your A to Z theme is an interesting one.

LittleCely from LittleCely's Blog

ScotSue said...

Love your photographs.

Jo said...

Nope not my favouritest dog either. But they are quite cute.

Gotta go look at the rest of that painting now.

Jo said...

Wot the heck's wrong with that?

David Robinson said...

I always felt the King Charles had such an appealing appearance, Bob.

And the pup reminds me of Sweep, our Yorkie, who had the same problem the first time he ever saw himself in a mirror.

aw said...

Visiting Blenheim Palace the other day the youngsters with me kept pointing out the dogs in the paintings and many of those were King Charles Spaniels. Their popularlity onviously lived on afer Charles II. Friends had a ruby King Charles and it was a great character.

Chrys Fey said...

I never has a Spaniel, but my best friend did when we were growing up and they are very sweet dogs. :)

Bob Scotney said...

Hi Jo - I had no problem either but as Google had cropped it, I had the chance to focus on the dog.