Saint Bernard in art: how painters shaped the breed's legend

Part 1

Edwin Landseer and the painting that fixed the breed's image

Landseer was eighteen years old when he painted Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler in 1820. The oil painting shows two large dogs finding an unconscious man half buried in snow in the Great Saint Bernard Pass, with monks hurrying toward the scene in the background. It measures about 189 by 237 centimeters. The painting was exhibited at the British Institution in 1820 and was widely praised at the time.

One of the two dogs in the painting wears a small keg on its collar. Some historians believe Landseer added the keg purely for dramatic effect, since there is no verified historical record from the hospice confirming the dogs ever carried alcohol. The barrel myth spread so widely that it was repeated in cartoons, advertisements, and merchandise well into the twentieth century. Historians who have studied the surviving records say that if the rescue dogs carried anything at all, it was more likely food and water, since those were what a freezing traveler actually needed. Giving alcohol to someone with hypothermia is also medically dangerous, which makes the brandy version of the story even less believable.

Part 2

The real hospice dogs behind the paintings

The dogs behind Landseer's painting were real working animals kept by monks at the Great Saint Bernard Hospice. The dogs are thought to have been introduced at the hospice as watchdogs sometime between 1660 and 1670. The most famous of these dogs was named Barry, who lived from about 1800 to 1814 and is credited with saving more than forty people during his working life. After Barry died, his body passed into the care of the Natural History Museum of Bern, where his skin was preserved through taxidermy. Measurements of his preserved body show that Barry was noticeably smaller and lighter built than the modern Saint Bernard your own dog might be compared to today, weighing between 40 and 45 kilograms.

Even so, picture books and other media that depict Barry today usually show him as a dog of the modern, bulkier breed, which is not how he actually looked.

Part 3

Saint Bernards in nineteenth century prints and illustration

An engraving after the painting was produced to accompany a written account of the dogs and the pass. The painting was later shown in exhibitions in Birmingham and Manchester.

Part 4

From fine art to advertising and mass culture

Cartoons from studios like Warner Brothers and Disney featured Saint Bernards wearing brandy barrels throughout the twentieth century. Advertisements, greeting cards, and other merchandise repeated the same picture.

Part 5

What museums and archives hold today

The original painting now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Before it reached the museum, it passed through a long chain of private owners, starting with the collector Jesse Watts Russell, who purchased it directly from Landseer in 1820. From there it changed hands through several estate sales in England over more than a century before eventually being acquired by the National Gallery of Art. Barry's own preserved body is held at the Natural History Museum of Bern, where it is currently on display. If you want to compare the romantic painted version with the real dog, visiting both collections side by side is the clearest way to see how art reshaped the breed's image.