MILWAUKEE, WI.- Gallery 19C and Thomas Deprez Fine Arts announced that Jan Stobbaerts’ The Dog Shearer (Le Tondeur de Chiens) has found the most ideal home at the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The theme of the Grohmann Museum, which includes over 2000 works of art dating from 1500 to the present day, is the evolution of organized work - from manpower and horsepower to water, steam and electrical power. The collection was gifted in 2001 by Milwaukee businessman and collector, Dr. Eckhart Grohmann.

James Kieselburg, the Director of the Grohmann Museum commented: “Our collection includes over 2000 examples and covers the last 500 years of labor and industry, but this working scene is a first for us. Dog-shearing, and the repurposing of the fur for knitting, is quite a unique subject to be sure."

Lost for over a century, The Dog Shearer (Le Tondeur de chiens) is one of Jan Stobbaerts’s (1838-1914) most important paintings and a prime example of nineteenth century Belgian Realism. Stobbaerts was the beneficiary of a centuries old Flemish tradition in depicting realistic, genre subjects, scenes taken from everyday life; dating as far back as the sixteenth century with Pieter Brueghel the Elder.

In Le Tondeur de chiens, Stobbaerts has depicted a scene (perhaps without precedent) from the life of a dog groomer. His “clients” are washed and clipped; a ball of yarn, knitting needles and a white thread dangle over the table to reveal an unfished sock. Nothing is wasted in this Belgian household; the dog’s fur drops in the basket under the table and is turned into yarn for knitting socks.

By the turn of the last century, Stobbaerts’s Le Tondeur de chiens had achieved such status as a pillar in the development of Belgian nineteenth century painting, that it was included in many, if not all major exhibitions and publications outlining the recent history of Belgian art.