Saint Bernard Rescuing A Child In The Snow – Beaded Embroidery, 19th Century

Saint Bernard Rescuing a Child in the Snow – Beaded embroidery, 19th century

Embroidery with polychrome glass beads sewn onto canvas

Size: 27 cm x 33 cm

Gilded wood and gesso frame, 19th century, to be restored

Second half of the 19th century

Condition: Complete and well-preserved embroidery; usual wear on the reverse

19th-century embroidery made with densely applied glass beads, depicting a Saint Bernard dog carrying an unconscious child through the snow to the threshold of a building marked with a cross.

The scene is based on the print Le chien de l’hospice, after a painting by Edwin Landseer (1802–1873), and refers to Barry, the rescue dog of the Great Saint Bernard Hospice who, according to tradition, saved more than 40 lives in the early 19th century. Barry is commemorated with a monument at the Cimetière des chiens in Asnières-sur-Seine, near Paris.

The Hospice du Grand-Saint-Bernard, founded around 1050 by Saint Bernard of Aosta, is located at the Alpine pass between Switzerland and Italy, in the Canton of Valais. Since its foundation, it has welcomed travelers and pilgrims and became known for its rescue dogs trained to find people lost in the snow.

The Saint Bernard dog breed originated in this setting in the 17th century from crossbreeding dogs donated by local families. Initially bred as guard dogs for the hospice, they later became the iconic mountain rescue dogs of the Alps.