Portrait of a boy and his dog, 1863, oil on canvas, 38-3/4 x 52 in., signed and dated 'L. Sachs / 1863' to the right of the boy's knee, canvas prepared in Philadelphia (brand on verso), in a period frame (reduced in size)

A painting of a similar (though inversed) composition by the artist is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., accession no. 1955.11.2 Lambert Sachs was born in Mannheim, Germany, and trained there as an artist before emigrating to the United States in 1850. He exhibited three portraits at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1854 and was a resident of Philadelphia until 1855, when he left to work as a farmer and itinerant artist in Ocean County, New Jersey, 50 miles east of Philadelphia. In 1859 or 1860, city directories show that Sachs returned to Philadelphia where he again took up portrait painting and opened a photography studio. Apparently this was short-lived, as in 1864, for unknown reasons, the artist returned to Germany where he remained for the rest of his life. The present painting is likely one of the final works he produced in Philadelphia.

[attic-found. Dirty varnish. Two punctures with paint loss above boy's head; right margin with 90-degree tear with paint loss, 2 x 1-1/2 in., a 3-in. vertical tear, and three small areas of paint loss; small puncture left margin with paint loss; area of lifting craquelure (mostly secure) along right edge of dog; UV reveals old retouches mostly in the negative space beneath the boy's arms, outside his hands, and under his legs; small retouch to chin and to vest (both appx. 1/2 in.); remnants of earlier restoration visible particularly on the boy's forehead]