Meek Stock No. 89 "St. Vincent"

General
Although dogs appear in many M&B/Meek/American Art Works designs, aside from “A Good Point” (possibly No. 71), which may or may not be a stock design and the poker playing dogs of CM Coolidge (“Auld Lang Syne, No. 107), this is the only design to feature a dog as the primary subject. Along with “Colin” (No. 88) he is the only named animal in the catalog. Some momentous or important “events of the day” seemingly fail to stand the test of time. So, it appears with the subject of Meek No. 90, “St. Vincent.” Although we do not have any examples of catalogs from the Meek era, some trays have been found with paper labels affixed with descriptive text similar to what appeared in the earlier Meek & Beach catalogs. The paper label that accompanies this design says:

"This speaking likeness of the great champion bulldog St Vincent is from a painting by Charles Mackarness of New York, the well known horse and dog artist. St Vincent was born in 1904 and is undoubtedly the best son of that great sire Hazelmere Prince, by Prince Albert, ex Isleton Best a granddaughter of Battle Axe and Balaclave. St Vincent has won over 150 prizes in England and many in America. He is owned by Mrs I. F. Hamilton of Cedarhurst, NY."

We cannot seem to find anything about St. Vincent himself, but we do find listings for his sire, Hazelmere Prince and grandsire, Prince Albert in kennel club pedigree databases.

The only Charles Mackarness we’ve been able to track down during this timeframe is a former editor of the American Kennel Club Gazette. His obituary notes that he was editor from 1902 to 1914 when he resigned and returned to England to further pursue his artist work. It includes this statement: “He will always be remembered for his wonderful models of dogs and other animals, also his paintings and clever literary works.” None of which we’ve been able to track down, but it seems likely that he is the artist responsible for this design.

At this point, it does not appear that Meek was publishing catalogs anymore (at least none have turned up that we are aware of); however, there have been trays that have turned up with a paper label affixed to the back that contain advertising copy similar to what was found in earlier Meek & Beach catalogs which we have quoted above. “St. Vincent” is the only design where we’ve seen multiple examples of these labels, which note that “the original painting is the property of the Meek Company, who also owns the exclusive copyright.” Interestingly, it is the only such label that we’ve seen that includes a picture of the artist.

Sahling’s workbook entry for this design, which appears in April of 1908 says “Stock oval tray, St. Vincent,” which we cannot explain since we’ve never seen an oval version of this design. Possibly it was a transcription error or the design was originally intended to be oval, but changed in production.

Size & Shape
As a tray, almost every time we’ve encountered this design it has been as a square (13.5" x 13.5"); however, we have run across two examples that were small oblongs (10.5" x13.5"), one of which was a stock sample and the other a Virginia flour milling company. These examples have truncated versions of the image which cuts of the bottom of the dog’s legs. Rims are green with gold advertising text; we do not recall seeing on with advertising on the face of the tray. We have also seen a few tin-over-cardboard (TOC) and self-framed tin (SFT) versions of this design.

Hager & Price
Although he does not discuss this design, Hager does include it in both his date of introduction table and his catalog. This design is common enough that even brewery examples in very good condition rarely command more than mid-three figures, although one such example from Albuquerque Brewing & Ice recently did break four figures. Most non-brewery versions have gone for double figures, with the occasional nice example breaking into the low three figures.