Saluki Sighthound Painting Icons: Savvy, Sensitive, Slim, Swift

Summary: The Saluki sighthound painting within the John Wootton painting The Byerley Turk iconizes an ancient, graceful, intelligent, lovable, swift Asian breed.

The Byerley Turk by John Wootton (ca. 1682-Nov. 13, 1764), English painter of sporting subjects: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The John Wootton painting The Byerley Turk also acts as a Saluki sighthound painting since one of the world's most ancient dog breeds appears alongside one of the world's most famous thoroughbreds.

The 18th-century animalscape broadcasts the back and right side of a beautiful Saluki gazehound whose head brushes in height the knee levels of the Arabian thoroughbred. It communicates alertness, bravery, dependability, gentleness, loyalty, respect and sociability in the deep-chested body toward the tethered thoroughbred and the narrow head toward the turbaned trainer. Nobody perhaps deduces the exact derivations of the orphaned dog, horse and man from the detailed depictions even though their complicity designates a Semitic language-speaking country.

Wootton's (1682?-Nov. 13, 1764) Saluki sighthound painting within his Arabian thoroughbred painting emphasizes the long narrow body, head and legs of descendants of 6000-year-old Iranian ancestors.

Thomas T. Allsen of the University of New Jersey in Trenton finds broad-skulled, deep-chested, leashed, long-eared Saluki gazehounds in Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2134 B.C.-1785 B.C.) art.

Ancient Egyptian artists gave Saluki sighthound paintings leashed gazehounds going, by sight and speed, with charioted or foot archers  after desert foxes, gazelles, hyenas and onagers. The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History, University of Pennsylvania Press publication May 1, 2006, harvests the name from pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, Salūqiyyah ("Seleucia") and Salūq, Yemen. Salūqiyyah is the first capital (305 B.C.-240 B.C.), in modern-day Iraq's Babil Governorate, of Macedon-born Seleucus I Nicator's (358 B.C.?-281 B.C.) Seleucid Empire (312 B.C.-63 B.C.).

Salūq joined Saluki timelines as rearing village for exported sighthounds to the Abbasid caliphate (750-125), 1261-117) from modern-day Libya through the Arabian Peninsula, Armenia and Iran.

Afghanistan, China and Italy kept Saluki sighthound paintings by Kamal al-Din Bihzad (1460-1535), Zhu Zhanji (March 16, 1399-Jan. 31, 1435) and Paolo Veronese (128-April 19, 1588).

Each African, Asian and European Saluki sighthound painting lauds the feather- or smooth-coated Saluki, nicknamed Arabian greyhound, gazelle hound, Persian greyhound, Persian sighthound, Tanji or Tazi. Old World Saluki sighthound paintings made way for New World Saluki sighthound photographs after Horace Newton Fisher's (Oct. 19, 1836-Oct. 23, 1916) Saluki import in 1861. The VetSTREET website notes Colonel Fisher netting the first Saluki in the United States with a shipment by clipper ship from Thebes, Egypt, to Boston, Massachusetts.

The Saluki sighthound painting icon officially obtained the American Kennel Club classification as hound in 1927 and the United Kennel Club classification as sighthound in 1956.

Saluki sighthound painting icons present 23- to 28-inch- (58.42- to 71.12-centimeter) heights and 45- to 65-pound (20.41- to 29.48-kilogram) weights, with females more petite than males.

Saluki physical and sexual maturity queues up daily jogs, four- to eight-puppy litters and 40-mile (64.37-kilometer) hourly top speeds during 10- to 17-year odor-free life expectancies. They reveal long, mobile ears; curvable, long, low-hanging tails; dark to hazel, large, oval eyes; hair-sided toes; long, narrow heads; long necks; narrow chests; straight forelimbs. They show black- or liver-colored noses and black, black-tan-white, cream, fawn, golden, grizzle, red, tan, white coarsely smooth or feather-eared, feather-tailed, short, silky, soft odor-free coats.

Daily family-bonding and tooth-brushing, monthly nail-trimming and weekly coat-brushing and year-round clean, soft, warm bedding thank Saluki sighthound painting icons for friendly, gentle, quiet, sensitive intelligence.

American artist, illustrator and ornithologist Louis Agassiz Fuertes (Feb. 7, 1874-Aug. 22, 1927) described the saluki as "long and rangy of leg," with a stance forming "an almost perfect square" of back and legs with the ground; Louis Agassiz Fuertes' "The Persian Gazellehound" painting: Baynes and Fuertes' The Book of Dogs (1919), page 22, Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

The Byerley Turk by John Wootton (ca. 1682-Nov. 13, 1764), English painter of sporting subjects: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Byerly_Turk.jpg

American artist, illustrator and ornithologist Louis Agassiz Fuertes (Feb. 7, 1874-Aug. 22, 1927) described the saluki as "long and rangy of leg," with a stance forming "an almost perfect square" of back and legs with the ground; Louis Agassiz Fuertes' "The Persian Gazellehound" painting: Baynes and Fuertes' The Book of Dogs (1919), page 22, Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14994711

For further information:

Allsen, Thomas T. 2006. The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History. Philadelpha PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Baynes, Ernest Harold; and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 1919. "The Persian Gazellehound." The Book of Dogs: An Intimate Study of Mankind's Best Friend: 22. Washington DC: National Geographic Society.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/14994711

Marriner, Derdriu. 8 November 2013. "John Wootton Painting The Byerley Turk and Elementary's Thoroughbreds." Earth and Space News. Friday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2013/11/john-wootton-painting-byerley-turk-and.html

"Saluki." American Kennel Club > Menu > Dog Breeds A-Z > View All Breeds.
Available @ https://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/saluki/

"Saluki." VetSTREET > Dogs > Breeds > Hounds.
Available @ http://www.vetstreet.com/dogs/saluki#personality