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THBRichard E. Bishop (1887-1975), Hollybrook Abandon
About Seller
65 Sharp Street
Hingham, MA 02043
United States
Copley Fine Art Auctions is the world's leading American sporting art auction company. Located in Hingham, MA, Copley specializes in antique decoys and 19th- and 20th-century American, sporting, and wildlife paintings. Principal Stephen O'Brien Jr., a fourth-generation sportsman with a refined colle...Read more
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About Auction
LiveFeb 23, 2024
Lots 1-238 Copley Fine Art Auctions cinnie@copleyart.com
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- Lot Description
Richard E. Bishop (1887-1975)
Hollybrook Abandon, 1938
signed and dated "Richard E. Bishop '38" lower right
oil on board, 11 1/2 by 15 1/2 in.
The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop, New York label on back
This bright painting depicts Hollybrook Abandon, the most famous English springer spaniel ever field-trialed in this country. It was painted in 1938 by noted sporting artist Richard E. Bishop, two years after he won the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest.
Hollybrook Abandon was owned by Harry I. Caesar, one of the founders of the Leash, a club for gentlemen dog-lovers (code for speakeasy) in 1925. Caesar worked for the family business, H. A. Caesar & Co., a dry-goods wholesaler and textile firm turned commercial bank and was described as “the dog-fancy-ing banker.” He served in World War I and headed Dogs for Defense during World War II, as well as being head of the American Kennel Club in 1946 and 1947, and holding leadership roles with the English Springer Spaniel Field Trial Association.
Caesar married Doris Porter in December 1913 after graduating from Princeton in the same year. Doris was a noted expressionist sculptor who studied at the Art Students League and in Alexander Archipenko’s studio, and exhibited her works at the Whitney Museum in 1959. Together with his wife, Caesar was a noted art collector whose name appears in provenance notes for Matisse works and others, and as a contributing member of MoMA. In addition to this Bishop, Caesar commissioned a number of known sporting art works from Aiden Lassell Ripley.
In both 1937 and 1938, Caesar and Hollybrook Abandon had great years, culminating in this portrait. In both of these years, the English Springer Spaniel Field Trials were held on Fishers Island, New York. The Henry L. Ferguson Museum on Fishers Island held a special exhibition, “The English Springer Spaniel on Fishers Island,” in 2019, including historic photographs from early trials. The setting at Fishers Island “is beautiful country over which to run a trial. There are wide stretches of grass land as level as a prairie that encourage a dog to step out, bog lands and gorse-covered hillsides to test their courage and pools of water which enable the judges to determine the all-around capabilities of the dogs before them,” notes Forest and Stream.
In 1937 “Harry was awarded the trophy for best amateur handler in the meet, and his dog, Hollybrook Abandon, won the prize as the best working dog in the meet, having, among other things, won the British Challenge Cup,” according to the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
The New York Times covered the trials, reporting, “Owned and handled in the field by Harry I. Caesar of Rumson, N.J., this liver and white American-bred Springer was put through an extremely severe test over difficult terrain and punishing cover to triumph…More severe conditions for testing spaniels in the field hardly could be imagined…Hollybrook Abandon, sired by Archy of Fintry and out-of-field trial champion Banchory Flame, was bred by Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Milbank of New York City. He was whelped April 14, 1935…Steadiness under the trying conditions marked Abandon’s work. He was always going on and gave recurring evidence of those inherent spaniel qualities that delight the hearts of true sportsmen. He was especially outstanding on running birds and his crowning performance was a superb blind retrieve in the gathering darkness.”
The New York Times chronicled the next year at the trial: “Hollybrook Abandon…started slowly in the first series in the morning, but as soon as his legs were well stretched he showed more dash. He hunted the likely places, quartering his ground in orthodox style. He was steady on all his birds, his first retrieve was from difficult cover and his handling of his birds hardly could have been better…Abandon’s marking was most precise and this was exemplified in his second series, in which both his birds were marked down almost exactly, the first in dense cover. His control was a feature of his work and this was proved decisively in the third series when two birds were shot at and not killed and when he was given another chance and a bevy got in front of him. He won outright the cup offered by David Wagstaff, president of the association. He will have his name engraved on the British Challenge Cup, presented by the English Springer Spaniel Club of England.” Two engraved trophies accompany this lot, as well as Harry I. Caesar’s photo album from the trials.
Provenance: Harry I. Caesar Collection, commissioned through The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop, New York, 1938
Henry A. Caesar II Collection, by descent in the family
The Sporting Gallery and Bookshop, Inc.
Literature: Princeton Alumni Weekly, 1937, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 9, p. 206.
Henry R. Ilsley, “Hollybrook Abandon Takes Springer Open All-Age Stake Second Year in Row,” The New York Times, Sunday, October 23, 1938.
“Brilliantly Contested Springer Spaniel Stake Goes to Hollybrook Abandon,” The New York Times, Sunday, October 24, 1937.
Forest and Stream, December 1926.
Stephen O’Brien Jr. and Julie Carlson Wildfeuer, The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley, pl. 80, p. 90.Condition
Please email condition report requests to leah@copleyart.com. Any condition statement given is a courtesy to customers, Copley will not be held responsible for any errors or omissions. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition.
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Shipping info
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