The Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz Rosecrans and Lieutenant Pauw, Cornelis Ketel, 1588

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-C-378
Made by Rembrand van Rijn from The Netherlands.
See at the right the black muzzled fighting dog.
You can enlarge the painting by clicking on it.

 

Can’t believe nobody commented?

What we would call a Bullenbesser at this time period in Holland and Germany,and Aluant in other parts of Europe.
I think they were known as Bullenbessers in Holland and Germany from about the 1100s up on till the late 1800s...

Nice painting.

 

Hancock says that in Central Europe in the Middle Ages up to the late 1800s holding dogs were known as ‘Bufalbeissers’ ,’Barenbeissers’ ,or ‘Bullenbeissers’ according to whether they seized or gripped Buffalo,Bear,or Wild Bulls.
He quotes Hanz Friedrich Von Fleming from 1719,who was German I think? Saying ‘About the Baren or Bollinbeisser,in the chase they appear to be very hot and are ferocious on attack.i personally believe they are of Tartaric origin,they are used in the Hungarian and Polish Bison chase and the Bear chases.most of them have short noses and the lower jaw protrudes.they have yellow and brown stripes’.

As I said nice painting,I’m not familiar with many Central European art works on dogs.

So much history to check out,but these Central European Fighting dogs are worth checking out.

 

When you think about it, in those times dogs really stood a chance against human enemies.

No bullets to shoot the dog and also not the medical treatments against dog bites.

Now the war dogs are used for finding mines and stuff like that, not a far chance nowadays, for the dogs.

Cool painting!

 

I agree about the bullets,and a dog would have been a weapon in times of old for sure.

 

Today they are using rats for mines.
The hero rat of today is somewhere shown in the crazy thread, of course