Nipper
 Photo of Francis Barraud's original 1898 His Master's Voice painting depicting an Edison cylinder phonograph | |
| Species | Canis familiaris |
|---|---|
| Breed | Mongrel (part terrier) |
| Sex | Male |
| Born | 1884 Bristol, England |
| Died | September 1895 (aged 10–11) England |
| Resting place | Kingston upon Thames 51°24′40″N 0°18′08″W / 51.410990°N 0.302226°W |
| Nation from | British |
| Owner | Mark Henry Barraud |
Nipper (1884 – September 1895) was a British dog. He is best known as the subject of the 1898 painting His Master's Voice, painted posthumously by his owner Francis Barraud.
The painting was purchased by the Gramophone Company (later EMI) in the following year, who reproduced Nipper's likeness across its music releases, and later expanded it into its own recording label and music retailer. Its American affiliate the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA Victor) also began using Nipper's likeness across its releases, leading Nipper to become known as the RCA Victor Dog. As both entities traded internationally, Nipper's likeness then obtained worldwide notoriety.
Background
[edit]Nipper was born in 1884 in Bristol, England, and died in September 1895.[1] He was likely a mixed-breed dog, although most early sources suggest that he was a Smooth Fox Terrier, or perhaps a Jack Russell Terrier,[2][3][4] or possibly "part Bull Terrier".[5] He was named Nipper because he would often "nip" at the backs of visitors' legs.[6]
Nipper originally lived with his owner, Mark Henry Barraud, in the Prince's Theatre where Barraud was a scenery designer.[7] When Barraud died in 1887, his brothers Philip and Francis took care of the dog, then Francis took Nipper to Liverpool, and later to Mark's widow in Kingston upon Thames, London. Nipper died of natural causes in 1895 and was buried in Kingston upon Thames at Clarence Street, in a small park surrounded by magnolia trees. As time progressed, the area was built upon, and a branch of Lloyds Bank now occupies the site. On the wall of the bank, just inside the entrance, a brass plaque commemorates the site as Nipper's resting place.[8]
His Master's Voice
[edit]In 1898, three years after Nipper's death, Francis Barraud, the brother of Nipper's original owner, painted a picture of the dog listening intently to an Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph. Thinking the Edison-Bell Company located in New Jersey, United States, might be interested in the painting, he offered it to James E. Hough, Edison-Bell's British representative, who promptly replied, "Dogs don't listen to phonographs".[6]
On 31 May 1899, Barraud visited the Maiden Lane offices of The Gramophone Company to inquire about borrowing a brass horn to replace the original black horn in order to brighten up the painting. When Gramophone Company founder and manager William Barry Owen was shown the painting, he suggested that if the artist painted out the cylinder machine and replaced it with a Berliner disc gramophone, he would buy the painting. Barraud obliged. The slogan "His Master's Voice", along with the painting, was sold to The Gramophone Company for £100 (equivalent to £13,667 in 2023) – half for the copyright and half for the physical painting itself.[9] The original oil painting hung in The Gramophone Company's headquarters, and then in EMI's boardroom in Hayes, Middlesex for many years. It appears that after the image was copyrighted, two employees of the Gramophone Company, William Sinkler Darby and Theodore Bernard Birnbaum, recorded a Mutoscope in 1900 entitled 'Nipper runs amok!'. Since the real Nipper had died in 1895, another dog was used.[10]
The image also became the successful trademark of the affliated American Victor Talking Machine Company, as Emile Berliner registered the trademark for use in the United States on 10 July 1900.[11] Victor Entertainment uses the logo only within Japan, which includes the phrase "His Master's Voice".[citation needed]
"It is difficult to say how the idea came to me beyond the fact that it suddenly occurred to me that to have my dog listening to the phonograph, with an intelligent and rather puzzled expression, and call it 'His Master's Voice' would make an excellent subject. We had a phonograph and I often noticed how puzzled he was to make out where the voice came from. It certainly was the happiest thought I ever had."
—Francis Barraud[12]
Legacy
[edit]
The likeness of Nipper has been reproduced into pocket watches, salt and pepper shakers, paperweights, cigar lighters, stuffed toys, coin banks, coffee mugs, T-shirts, neckties and clocks.[13] These advertising items have long been popular collectables.[14]
A depiction of Nipper appeared in RCA television advertisements, and later versions with his "son", a puppy named Chipper who was added to the RCA family in 1991.[15] Real dogs continue to play the roles of Nipper and Chipper, but Chipper has to be replaced much more frequently, since his character is a puppy.[16]
A Baltimore street leading to a development of town-houses is named Nipper Way, where a statue of Nipper resided for a brief time before being relocated.[17]
On 10 March 2010, a small road near to the dog's final resting place in Kingston upon Thames was officially named Nipper Alley.[8]
Statues
A four-ton Nipper can be seen on the roof of the former RCA distribution building now owned by Arnoff Moving & Storage.[18] The site is located at 991 Broadway in Albany, New York.[12]
A statue of Nipper was purchased by Jim Wells from RCA in Baltimore for $1, where it originally graced the former RCA Building on Russell Street. After spending many years on private property in Nipper Park in Merrifield, Virginia, perched over Lee Highway (U.S. Route 29), it has now been returned to Baltimore, Maryland. Nipper now sits atop the Maryland Historical Society building at Park Avenue and West Centre Street in Baltimore, and the statue now includes a gramophone.
A small statue of Nipper in the United Kingdom can be seen perched above a doorway in the Merchant Venturers Building on the corner of Park Row and Woodland Road in Bristol; this building, part of the University of Bristol, stands near the site of the old Prince's Theatre.[citation needed]
In Orlando, Flordia, at Walt Disney World, a replication of Nipper with a gramophone appeared inside of a spaceship on the Space Mountain rollercoaster, and remained until the sponsorship from RCA to Walt Disney ended, upon which he was made into a robot dog and moved elsewhere within the queue.[19]
Various reproductions of Nipper can be found in the permanent exhibition of the Musée des ondes Emile Berliner in Montreal, Quebec,[20] a museum dedicated to the work of Emile Berliner and his companies that Nipper was the face of.
In 1984, a life-sized ornament of Nipper appears in the music video of Cyndi Lauper's song "Time After Time".[21]
In May 2017, the City of Albany held a contest for various groups or artists to submit designs for creative, painted Nipper statues which were placed throughout the city. Ten of the contestants were chosen to create ten Nipper statues – which were displayed for one year and then auctioned off for charity.[22]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "The History of Nipper and His Master's Voice". erikoest.dk.
- ^ "HMV seeks budding Nipper". news.bbc.co.uk. BBC.
- ^ Fudge, Erica (2002). Animal. London: Reaktion. p. 67. ISBN 978-1-86189-134-1.
- ^ Angell, Roger (30 November 2011). "The Wrong Dog". The New Yorker. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
- ^ Cunliffe, Juliette (2000). The Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds. Bath, England: Parragon. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-7525-4161-7.
- ^ a b "the nipper saga". designboom.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
- ^ "The History of the Department of Computer Science". Retrieved 19 December 2012.
- ^ a b "Kingston's Toilet Gallery alley named after HMV dog Nipper". Surrey Comet. 1 January 2010.
- ^ Petts, Leonard (1973). "The Story of "Nipper" and the "His Master's Voice" Francis Barraud's painting". Talking Machine Review. ISBN 0902338161.
- ^ "Secrets of the EMI Archive – 1". EMI Archive Trust. 14 May 2019.
- ^ Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867–1914 and Their Lasting Impact (Oxford University Press, 2005), p240
- ^ a b Rolfs, Joan & Robin. (2007). Nipper Collectibles, The RCA Victor Trademark Dog. Audio Antique LLC, USA. ISBN 978-1-932433-82-1
- ^ Ascher-Walsh, Rebecca (8 October 2013). Devoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty, and Life With Dogs. National Geographic Books. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-4262-1263-5.
- ^ "Johnson Victrola Museum, Dover, Delaware". Archived from the original on 31 December 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2012.
- ^ Chipper
- ^ Berns, Gregory (2013). How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-544-11451-7.
- ^ "Google Maps". Google Maps.
- ^ "About Us". Arnoff Moving & Storage - New York's Hudson Valley Mover of Choice. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
- ^ Ace, Shannen (3 February 2023). "New Stitch & RCA Dog Space Mountain Pin Lands at Walt Disney World - WDW News Today". wdwnt.com. WDW NEWS TODAY.
- ^ "Mon cher Nipper c'est à ton tour : une exposition qui a du chien... depuis 100 ans". Musée des ondes Emile Berliner (in French). Retrieved 16 August 2022.
- ^ "Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time (Official HD Video)". YouTube. 25 October 2009. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
- ^ Barnes, Steve (13 July 2017). "Albany summer street exhibit features Nipper statues". Times Union. Retrieved 3 September 2017.
External links
[edit]
- "Little Nipper" background at RCA Global Communications, New York City
- RCA Building, Albany, NY
- Koenigsberg, Allen (June 2022). "Nipper's Arrival in the New World". Academia.
- Musée des ondes Emile Berliner