Influential Victorian-era art critic and theorist John Ruskin wrote, “The greatest thing a human being ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way.” The Museum’s recent acquisition, A White Terrier by a Mossy Bank with Flowers by English painter William J. Webbe, is a stunning example of a painter striving to adhere to Ruskin’s principles of “truth to nature.”  With painstaking attention, both dog and landscape are meticulously rendered with uncanny detail. Seemingly every hair on the animal, every blade of grass, and every blossom is captured with microscopic focus and a hyper-clarity bordering on the fantastic. 

The distinct charm of Webbe’s image derives from the intensity of his portrait “sitter.”  This clearly is not just any dog.  Webbe certainly was painting from life (or possibly from a photograph) the portrait of a specific animal, perhaps a posthumous likeness of a beloved lost friend. Unfortunately, neither the name of the dog,* a White English Terrier, nor that of its owner, is known. 

William J. Webbe (British, 1827-about 1878), A White Terrier by a Mossy Bank with Flowers, 1871, gouache with oil-resin glazes on paper. Gift of Florence Scott Libbey, by exchange, 2007.49