Labrador Retriever archive tees, sweatshirts and hoodies

Before the name, there was a working dog on the Newfoundland coast: the St John's water dog, which hauled lines and brought back cod and anything else that went over the side. Fishing boats landed them at Poole in Dorset in the early nineteenth century, and English estates, the Earl of Malmesbury's among them, took up the type for the shooting field. Everything about a Labrador still points at that job. The dense water-shedding coat, the thick otter tail used as a rudder, the compulsion to carry something in the mouth when you come through the door, and an appetite that has never once been satisfied. For the plate, the artist gave the tail its full weight and drew the head in three-quarter view, mouth soft, as though something is about to be delivered.