A Dog has a bath at a Parlour in London 1930.
A dog dressed up as a Policeman 1929.
Old Dog Photos and Postcards
As dog photographers, we’re drawn to and intrigued by other photographers’ work, specifically vintage analog black and white photos. It’s warming to see how strongly someone’s great-great-great-grandparents felt about their family pet and wanted their four-legged friend photographed – which, as you can imagine, was costly and quite rare in the 1800s/early 1900s. The technical skills needed to achieve sharp, interesting, and captivating photos that have survived beyond a century are fascinating and provide a literal snapshot of the past. So, if you ask us, we’re not surprised that antique dog photography has started becoming collectable!
The increasing interest and desirability of antique photos is partly because of the uniqueness of an original photograph – but they also have a tendency to be cheaper than old antique paintings that come with larger price tags. The desirability of these photographs has also grown with a multitude of antique dog photography books being published, which has consequently inspired people around the world to start a collection of their own.
A dog with the Eton Fire Brigade 1906.
Being a small family business based in Eton (Berkshire) and Kingston (Greater London), we were elated when we discovered and purchased a piece of dog history taken on our local streets 115 years ago: an antique photograph of the Eton Fire Brigade featuring a Jack Russell. Looking much like our family dog, Raffles, it felt particularly special to us!
Antique Dog Photos
A London-based collector, Libby Hall, is believed to have the largest number of antique dog images gathered by any single person. Libby collected the photographs between 1966 and 2006 when the photographs were generally considered trivial, but, by the end, she had published four books and been priced out of the increasingly popular collectors market. Her passion and eye for dog photography have in turn left others wanting to curate their own snapshots into the history surrounding dogs.
Delve into Libby Hall’s antique dog collection through her published books:
