Rousseau Hounds

[blueticker78]

thanks Larry I thought maybe you did find the painting thats why I asked if you could post it. all I could find was refference to it as well there are sights you can view it at but they want you to subscribe to there art sites so I will keep looking with out having to subscribe. I think that there is alot of wrong accounts of breeding in all of the modern American hounds I personally have been looking for info on the strains of fox hounds latley to see if anybody in there writing has mentioned anything about the tree hounds because I think in This country the fox hunters kept better records then anyone else, they hunted for sport and kept detailed records to the best of there ability and the big game hunters or meat hunters bred and hunted for just that for meat and for bounty and were less likley to sit down and record breedings and history behind there dogs they bred good dogs to good dogs and I believe there is alot of thought and work behind them they just didnt record it as much. You are right it does not matter much now as long as our dogs do what we need them to do and we have a solid plan for there path in the future, its fun to research and find out as much as possible and when we land on something that is truly educational in the past breeding of our hounds that will help us in the future that is great but I guess somethings we will never know for sure.

[liontracker]

The Rousseau Article:



I found the book mentioned, online, but the limited preview available, does not show page 30 where this painting is depicted. Surely someone on here has a copy of this book and can scan it?

[Dads dogboy]

Liontracker,

Abe Books had two copies of the Book and I have ordered 1! I will be glad to post a scan of it when I get it. The person I talked to described the painting much as it has been on here!

Thanks goes out to you and Larry for bringing this Breed back for discussion. I though that Mr. Hardaway and I were the only KOOKS who liked the Big Whites!

C. John Clay
Dads Dogboy

[driftwood blue]

here is the print..but the quote in Mr Traverse's article should be taken with a bit more than a grain of salt---it was a direct quote from Mel Farber.

[Dads dogboy]

Driftwood Blues,

Thanks for posting the Plate! I bet we all can recall seeing this other places and just did not know the Story behind the painting.

I know that now that I see it, I have the same Plate in another Hound book from Texas...the search through the shelves has begun!

CJC

PS Just looking at the Copy of the Painting, you might get the feeling that the Panther was BLACK... however Porcelaine's do not have Black Spots, but rather and Orange/Tan Spots, not dissimilar to the natural color of our Texas Big Cats!

[driftwood blue]

Black cat ?
like a lot of stuff it might have been someone that used the brush to put emphasis on the dog rather than looking like a grand dog fight.

I hope you get more out of that book than I did.. it was not what Mel Farber had puffed it up to be.all the illustrations are intact in the one I got
.One thing that was of interest was how the hounds of old were fed!

[liontracker]

Looks like that Panther got at least one hound.
So anyway, is there any proof that Rouseau lived in Texas and that Porcelains were in the US?
Or was it all a fabrication?

[driftwood blue]

About all that was mentioned about Rousseau was a bit over 1 page.. and most of the same information Larry Morgan's research has reflected.
on Page 58 it mentioned that the family fortunes had been depleted he moved to Texas to enter the Cattle business.. how ever some times things get credited to someone that is a bit different than the documented facts

So one could make an assumption that there was a bit of fabrication in some of the so called history there

There is a number of books listed as available on Abe Books... but some are ex library books and illustrations are often missing in them.-- the one I have is a red book with a black spine binding.... Garden City Publishing.

[liontracker]

I researched the county records of Lubbock Texas and indeed found a ton of Rousseau's. When I get more time I will dig into it. I wonder where Farber got all his info from. The sources that E.S.Traverse lists that I have seen check out.

[Dads dogboy]

Liontracker,

The High Plains and Ranching Museum in Lubbock does indeed have tons of info on the early Ranchers in the TX. Panhadle. The Name Rouseau comes up quite a bit however the mention of Hounds is sketchy.

I have sicked some friend who live in Lubbock on this and we will see what developes.

There is mention of a big "Wolf Hunt" that took place in the Palo Dura with Hounds and some "BIG White" Hounds were used! As I get more info I will post it.

The old TX Wolf Hunters Association's records would be a big help as the Association was started in the early 1880's. My Dads Uncle (who helped raise Dad ) was a member even though he did not Hunt much. Dad can remember talk of some nice Hounds that came from out West in the early 1900's who were big White Hounds.

These were used in the Brazos River bottom area in Central TX, on Wolves, the last of the Bear, and Deer. They must have been pretty good Hounds as they litteraly cleaned out the Wovles, Bear, and the Deer....very interesting when you begin to connect the dots.

CJC

[lmorgan]

I'm glad someone finally found the painting. I'd like to have a copy of it on my wall. Unfortunately, so much of what is in the article posted above just doesn't line up with the facts or reality of the situation. I'm not willing to say that Mel Farber's facts were completely wrong and that there were no Rousseau hounds. I believe that there were. I just don't believe they were PERCIVAL Rousseau hounds.

Henry Crawford is the curator of History at the Museum of Texas Tech (National Ranching Heritage Center) in Lubbock and an old friend of mine. I'll give Henry a call and see if he can put one of his interns on some Rousseau research for us.

[Dads dogboy]

Larry,

Dad and I will be in Melville, La. in the near future to visit some friends and get some photos for Shorty and the Book we are doing on DAD. Sure would like to get together with you if possible. I should have the Book with the Painting in a day or two and will be glad to let you read it and copy what you want out of it!

I am trying to get some info on the Old Texas Wolf Hunters Association. Their membership records and minutes may help shed lite on this subject.

Some thing may be putting a hitch in the get along of researching thse old families is their being bad about using the same names for multiple family members. Just when you think you have a family branch lined out....boom you find that it was a sibling or cousin with the same name.

The records of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association have been some help in my research (which is very little as Liontracker just recently made me aware of the Roussou connection with Porcelaine Hounds). A Mr. Roussou was a member from West Texas early in the Organizations History. No First name that I have found yet.

AS I get some time this summer I will make a trip to Ft. Worth and spend some time with their Archives and see what else I can find.

History is fascinating and Hound History even more so!

CJC

[lmorgan]

I had some friends from the Melville area once upon a time. You'll be pretty close to the Rousseau country over there for sure. Of course you're welcome here anytime. I'm probably an 1 1/2-2 hour drive from Melville (due east), maybe shorter depending on how the ferry is running in New Roads. Just PM me and let me know when you're headed this way.

Speaking of research... here is a cool quote I found from my friend Henry at the Texas Tech Museum... "A good horse is worth two good women, a good woman is worth two good hounds and a good hound is worth two good horses." - Unknown

[liontracker]

The following is from a short biography on Rosseau in Grays Sporting journal:

Those were clearly different times. Rosseau, who as a painter was at the top of his game during the first decades of the 20th century, was born in slave country in Pointe Coupée Parish near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the most precarious time in American history. The Civil War would sweep away the young Rosseau’s entire universe, taking his father, uncle, and two older brothers in the field and his mother from illness, while General W. T. Sherman destroyed the affluent family’s plantation during his Mississippi campaign.


Setters in the Field. Images courtesy William Secord Gallery, New York.
The story passed down from authors who met Rosseau’s elderly son, Francis, in the 1980s, is that Rosseau (and his sister) were saved by a slave and then raised by a guardian in Kentucky, who taught him how to shoot, hunt, and fish; at school he learned to draw and carve. At 17 he struck out on his own. For the first six years he worked as a cowboy, trading and driving cattle along the Chisholm Trail from Mexico to Kansas, shooting bison to feed his men. With his earnings he got into the lumber business, but lost his timber in an unrecoverable logjam while floating it down the Mississippi River. He then went to New Orleans and started a fruit import business that he moved to New York City. At 35 he’d amassed enough to retire on his investments.

In an amazing switch, the American entrepreneur set sail in 1894 for France to study art, traveling from San Francisco via Honolulu and Hong Kong. Onboard he met another orphan, Nancy Bidwell of Los Angeles—the first white child born in the Arizona Territory. They were married in 1897 and moved to France, where they raised two sons and many hunting dogs in their country home in Rolleboise, about 45 miles northwest of Paris along the Seine River, only a few miles from Giverny, where Claude Monet had lived since 1883.



Note the spelling difference. On the painting it is spelled Rosseau also. The painting also claims that these are Rosseau's own hounds.

It would make sense that he owned these hounds between the age of 17 and 35. They could have even been offspring of his fathers hounds that he tracked down when he grew older. As for the part about actual numbers of hounds and leaving them here when he moved to France, nothing more yet. Also note the family Plantation was in Mississippi, not Louisianna.

Also, this quote from an interview:

“A man should paint what he knows best, and I know more about animals than anything else. I have run hounds from childhood and have at my fingertips the thorough knowledge necessary to picture dogs faithfully.”
~ Artist Percival Rosseau

[liontracker]

Here is more in an article by Arthur Hoeber in The International Studio, Volume 36:

Mr. Rosseau has had a varied experience in life. Born in the South, Where he was educated, he went West after leaving the schools, and lived in the open on the ranch. He hunted much, and he became familiar with the rough life of the plains. Then came the call to art and the trip to france, where he has remained for the last fifteen years.

One of his important works is the chase of a mountain lion, the cougar, by a pack of hounds. The animal has been overthrown and the dogs are on every side. It is realistically rendered and highly effective, bearing the mark of aythority. When it was shown first it created a sensation among the French sportsmen. as well as among the painters, for here was a man who gave the artistic touch as well. To all his pictures the landscape background is introduced with genuine feeling, in excellent color and with proper sense of environment. There are many other pictures of dogs in milder forms of the chase, in long sedge grasses, on swamps, in woodland, pionters, setters and hounds, and invariably Mr. Rosseau is a master of the situation.