Dogs Playing Poker
Poker has gone to the dogs and Cassius Coolidge’s canine card sharks are part of a series of 16 paintings portraying dogs in human poses, originally created for the advertising firm Brown & Bigelow.
Dogs Playing Poker (DPP) refers collectively to a series of sixteen oil paintings, commissioned in 1903 by Brown & Bigelow to advertise cigars. All the paintings in the series feature people characterized as dogs, but the nine in which dogs are seated around a card table have become most well-known.
Love them, or loathe them, much has been said about the series. Two of the DPP cleaned house at Doyle New York's annual Dogs in Art Auction,in 2005, fetching a staggering $590,400, the auction house said.
After intense bidding, "A Bold Bluff" and "Waterloo: Two" sold to a private collector from New York City. The buyer was not identified. Poker's current vogue is a factor that likely contributed to the sale price, the auction director said.
Click on images below to view larger image.
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| A Bold Bluff | Waterloo | |
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| A Friend in Need | His Station and Four Aces | |
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| Pinched with Four Aces | Poker Sympathy | |
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| Post Mortem | Stranger in Camp |
Many of these prints are still available for purchase today !
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