Twogreyhounds

The Sighthound Bulletin

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Art | The sighthound bulletin

Benedito Vives, Manuel. Valencia, 1875 - Madrid, 1963. Painter. Born into a family of artists, he studied in his native city and was an outs

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𝗬𝗢𝗡𝗚𝗖𝗛𝗨𝗟 𝗞𝗜𝗠 x

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By 1922, the Greyhound was no longer simply the dog of the aristocracy or the hunting field.

It had become a symbol of modern elegance.

This refined fashion illustration, featuring the names of the couturiers André Drecoll, Doeuillet and Jean Patou, shows how the Greyhound had entered the visual language of French haute couture. Its clean lines, graceful neck and perfectly balanced silhouette echo the figures of the women, expressing the same search for harmony, lightness and refined proportion.

The title, C'est le printemps, c'est l'essor ("It is spring, it is the awakening"), perfectly captures the spirit of the age. In the years following the First World War, fashion embraced a new aesthetic defined by freedom, movement and simplicity of form.

The Greyhound embodied all of these qualities.

It appears not merely as a companion animal, but as a true emblem of grace, modernity and refinement, destined to become one of the defining icons of the Art Deco era.

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Francesco Vinea Cavalier in black with an elegant lady and grayhound

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Among the ancient deities of Roman Britain, one is known from a single inscription: Cunomaglos.

His name is generally interpreted as "Lord of the Dogs" or "Lord of the Hounds." It is one of the rare instances in which the dog does not appear beside a deity, but becomes part of the deity's very name.

We do not know what Cunomaglos looked like. That is precisely why he continues to leave room for the imagination.

One of the stories told in The Hound That Chases the Sky.

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Between 1841 and 1860, the Greyhound also found its way into the home through embroidery.

This embroidery pattern, printed in Berlin by A. Todt, depicts a Greyhound standing beside a dead hare, a scene rooted in the European hunting tradition. Printed on a gridded canvas and hand-coloured, it was designed to be reproduced in cross-stitch or other embroidery techniques.

Beyond paintings and engravings, patterns like this helped spread the image of the Greyhound throughout nineteenth-century Europe, transforming a hunting dog into a subject for textile art and domestic decoration.

Today, the pattern is preserved in the Landwehr-Vogels Embroidery Pattern Collection (Collection 1399), where it stands as a fascinating example of the Greyhound's place not only in sporting and artistic culture, but also in the decorative arts of the nineteenth century.

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FRANZ RUDOLF FERDINANDOVICH

Three Hounds (1872)

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At the centre of the Altoviti family coat of arms stands a rampant animal enclosed within a laurel wreath and flanked by two cherubs.

Its identification, however, is not unanimous. Some scholars interpret the figure as a wolf, while others explicitly describe it as a Greyhound. The official catalogue record of the Italian General Catalogue of Cultural Heritage also identifies it as a "rampant Greyhound."

If interpreted as a Greyhound, the animal appears collared and rampant, following a classic heraldic convention, and becomes part of the long tradition of sighthounds appearing in the coats of arms of noble Italian families.

This drawing offers a reconstruction of the central figure, highlighting its heraldic features and making more legible a detail that is now difficult to distinguish in the surviving plaster cast.

Heraldry continues to preserve valuable evidence of the Greyhound's place in Italian history and iconography.

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Arno Rink

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Most people know Arthur Conan Doyle as the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Far fewer know that he also wrote an entire book defending the famous Cottingley Fairy photographs.

Among discussions of photography, belief, and the supernatural, an unexpected figure appears: the Greyhound.

It is not a passing mention. It is used as one of the most familiar images of speed and movement in early twentieth-century Britain, revealing just how deeply the breed had entered the cultural imagination of its time.

One more surprising encounter between literature and the history of the Greyhound.

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History | The sighthound bulletin

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Nadezhda Mostyaeva

Borzoi puppy, watercolor

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Briton Rivière

An Exile of the ’45

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Sighthounds are often celebrated for their elegance.

More rarely are they portrayed as individuals.

In Galgos, Cuban-born artist Eric Alfaro sets aside movement and speed to focus on something quieter: personality. Each dog looks in a different direction, each expression is unique, yet together they form a silent conversation.

Thick impasto, restrained colours, and confident brushstrokes create presence rather than photographic detail, reminding us that every sighthound has its own character as well as its own beauty.

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Measuring just 2.2 centimetres across, this remarkable onyx cameo was created by the Imperial Yekaterinburg Lapidary Works in Russia around 1840.

Carved with two Greyhounds, it reflects the extraordinary level of craftsmanship achieved by the Imperial lapidary workshops, where hard stones were transformed into miniature works of art.

Today, this elegant cameo is preserved in the collections of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, offering a small but fascinating glimpse into the place of the Greyhound in nineteenth-century decorative art.

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Otto Eerelman Arabian Sloughi greyhound watches over her puppies

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The Borzoi has appeared on stamps around the world, reflecting the breed's international appeal and enduring elegance.

This issue from Fujeira, released in 1970, portrays the Russian sighthound with its unmistakable silhouette, celebrating one of the most distinctive breeds in canine history.