Two Samoyed Dogs on a New England Farm Lawn, 1950s

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Two Samoyed Dogs on a New England Farm Lawn, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Two Samoyed Dogs on a New England Farm Lawn, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-EACAC0

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Sometime in the 1950s, someone with a well-kept rural property and two immaculate white Samoyeds decided that the dogs deserved a formal portrait, which is the kind of decision that says more about the owner than the animals. Samoyeds had been bred for thousands of years to herd reindeer across Siberian tundra, and here they are on a mown New England lawn behind a white board fence, their Arctic coats gleaming in summer sun as though the whole arrangement were perfectly logical. One sprawls with the easy authority of a dog that has never missed a meal; the other sits upright and surveys the paddock with an expression suggesting it is still waiting for the reindeer to show up. The stone wall running along the hillside behind them is the unmistakable fieldstone-clearing work of generations of New England farmers who had the misfortune of inheriting rocky glacial soil, and the white clapboard corner of a farmhouse just visible at the edge of the frame confirms the setting has the tidy, aspirational look of a property that had recently crossed the line from working farm to gentleman's estate. The dogs, bred for hardship and utility, had successfully completed the same transition.

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