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Description
I'm having a hard time putting anything on paper lately, so I've been doing a few studies. Mostly of dogs, but I'm planning on drawing some other stuff as well.

All of these are freehand and were drawn directly onto paper with watercolor and/or colored pencils, so there's bound to be a few mistakes left and right as I'm not sketching these out.

The earliest mention of a Dogue de Bordeaux as a variety that I've been able to find dates from 1855.
The only image of a true dogue de Bordeaux as it was known in France was shown at the first French dog show of 1863. This is the brindle dog I drew in the middle. After this period, there is a 20 year gap between any dogue dbdx being shown at all at any shows. The first dogs to make their appearance again was at an 1883 show and were all of (confirmed) mainly English Mastiff stock, with some dogue de bordeaux ancestry. These dogs then went on to found the breed. But around the early 20th century, the breed was in jeapordy due to its low numbers and so was crossed with numerous other breeds including the English Mastiff, the English Bulldog, Great Dane, and some others.

The original dogue de bordeaux as it was known in the 19th century was actually solid white in color, sometimes with black ears or black plates of color, or fawn-brindled. By 1863 however, the solid red type became the most fashionable and eventually the only one the dogs would be accepted in at all. The mention of the black and white dogs as the most typial continued right up until the crossbred dogs made their reappearance at shows in the 1880s.

The black and white dog is based on a description of mastiffs I've read in some old 16th French litrature which made mention of "mastiffs white as snow with charcoal-black masks" which honestly would've been a very interesting sight.

These dogs varied very wildly in type throughout most of their purebred-history. Many were clearly heavy in bulldog ancestry, while others looked more like heavy and wrinkly Great Danes, but you could find just about anything in between. But whatever they looked like, the modern type deviates the furthest from any of the original types by far.

Description
I'm having a hard time putting anything on paper lately, so I've been doing a few studies. Mostly of dogs, but I'm planning on drawing some other stuff as well.

All of these are freehand and were drawn directly onto paper with watercolor and/or colored pencils, so there's bound to be a few mistakes left and right as I'm not sketching these out.

The earliest mention of a Dogue de Bordeaux as a variety that I've been able to find dates from 1855.
The only image of a true dogue de Bordeaux as it was known in France was shown at the first French dog show of 1863. This is the brindle dog I drew in the middle. After this period, there is a 20 year gap between any dogue dbdx being shown at all at any shows. The first dogs to make their appearance again was at an 1883 show and were all of (confirmed) mainly English Mastiff stock, with some dogue de bordeaux ancestry. These dogs then went on to found the breed. But around the early 20th century, the breed was in jeapordy due to its low numbers and so was crossed with numerous other breeds including the English Mastiff, the English Bulldog, Great Dane, and some others.

The original dogue de bordeaux as it was known in the 19th century was actually solid white in color, sometimes with black ears or black plates of color, or fawn-brindled. By 1863 however, the solid red type became the most fashionable and eventually the only one the dogs would be accepted in at all. The mention of the black and white dogs as the most typial continued right up until the crossbred dogs made their reappearance at shows in the 1880s.

The black and white dog is based on a description of mastiffs I've read in some old 16th French litrature which made mention of "mastiffs white as snow with charcoal-black masks" which honestly would've been a very interesting sight.

These dogs varied very wildly in type throughout most of their purebred-history. Many were clearly heavy in bulldog ancestry, while others looked more like heavy and wrinkly Great Danes, but you could find just about anything in between. But whatever they looked like, the modern type deviates the furthest from any of the original types by far.