Does that breeder have a website?

Interesting find Carl, I had not seen the Dickens comment before you posted same!

In viewing the various pictures of those Saints, it becomes clear that their bone were as varied as the mastiff's bone. Saint type was also varied, with Mastiff, Bloodhound, Newf and local stock ALL having had their impact in that regard.

Upon observation, the heavier boned specimens seem to present more Mastiff like qualities then do their lesser boned brothers. Whether that bone comes from the Mastiff, Newf, or a hybrid "pop", it is clear that the "great bone" seems to come into play, after the breed hits England and then crossed with the Mastiff. English Saint breeders wanted more head and with that head came "other" attributes as well. To believe that those English breeders could refine & confine only head type and eliminate every other inherited Mastiff quality, is short sighted, to say the least!

When those reported 3 Newfs were introduced into the Alpine strain at the Hospice, they may have also impacted on bone size, so we can't ignore that fact either. I always wondered about those Newfs. If black, where did the black go? Black is dominant over most other colors, so there must have been a selective process to eliminate that color, "if" it was used, or perhaps landseers were used? Just a puzzlement, as Yul might say!

 
Different Saints can show different "bone" due to color (note white rear legs over stifle on dog at right, enhances size)( fig 1, white on the center of head, broadens the head as well), angle of shot and hair length, length of leg, etc.

From FCI Saints
FOREQUARTERS : "Strong muscles descending from shoulders and surrounding a well boned humerus are connected in correct angulation to the massive bones of the seen from front absolutely straight and muscular fore-legs.  Legs slightly fringed down to pastern."

From AKC: Saints
Upper Arms
"Very powerful and extraordinarily muscular."

Lower Leg
"Straight, strong."

AKC Mastiffs:

"Forequarters
Shoulders - moderately sloping, powerful and muscular, with no tendency to looseness. Degree of front angulation to match correct rear angulation.
Legs - straight, strong and set wide apart, heavy boned."

OEM Standard:

History of the Breed

What Color is a Newfoundland and When? - Emma H. Mellencamp PhD. History of Art '57

reprinted from Newf Tide Vol. 7 No. 4 1976

A rumor has been going around for more than a century that the black Newfoundland dog was very popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries until Sir Edwin Landseer's "Distinguished Member of the Humane Society" painted in 1838, made the black and white Newfoundland the "In" dog to have. In four years of intensive research on Edwin Landseer and his contemporary painters of animals, the breed called "Newfoundland", I have found, were not black and the painting of "Distinguished Member" had no effect upon the color of the breed whatsoever. 

There are many lost Landseer painted treasures out there, somewhere. Sir Edwin was incredibly prolific, painted almost continuously for over 50 years, sometimes two different pictures, one with each hand at the same time. It was a parlor trick, of course, but he was a deft technician. The Graves' catalog lists over 500 major works and it is not altogether complete. His most recent biographer, Cambell Lennie (1976) reports that "the sale of Landseer's works of art, some 1,400 of them took place over seven days ... beginning 8th May 1874 at Christie's ... " Yet anyone who has tried to find information about Sir Edwin's and his contemporaries' paintings has met with exasperating obstacles. The 19th century major biographies of Sir Edwin are in storage and/or crumbling into confetti. A search for his actual paintings is even worse: the British Museums have only several dozen among them, all but a few in storage. Many of our American museums, tired of storing Landseer's and other 19th century realistic paintings and enormous engravings, have sold them at auction. And when they have been retained, it takes perseverance, pull and patience to get them out to view. The engravings of Newfoundland dogs, both Sir Edwin's and his contemporaries, are more readily available, reproduced smaller in books, but they are, of necessity, black, gray and white. When searching for color, only the paintings themselves, or color descriptions by contemporaries, will do. 

It's easy to fall into the error that a black dog in an engraving is indeed a black dog. I found an engraving of "Ptarmigan Hill" painted by Landseer in 1869, showing two shaggy black beauties I was quite certain must be early Newfs, until a color heliotype of the painting published in 1876 showed them to be a grayed violet-blue which was described as "liver-colored", and the dogs themselves identified as "retrievers." 

Only a researcher in the field can know the deep satisfaction of finding a drawing or a painting of a dog, not only definitely dated but also described by 19th century viewers as a "Newfoundland." 

Vero Shaw, in his Illustrated Book of the Dog (1890) says that Landseer "corrupted the public mind upon the subject of the Newfoundland. A vast number of people, without troubling themselves to inquire into the matter, have associated the black & white dog with the correct type of Newfoundland, utterly regardless of the fact that Sir Edwin may have selected this color as brighter and more suitable for the object he had in view." Shaw, possibly also without "troubling himself to inquire into the matter" copied this thought from Stonehenge (J.H. Walsh) in his 3rd ed. of 1878. The opinion continues to be repeated endlessly into our own times. 

Given the perspective of almost a century, it is clear that Shaw and Stonehenge were writing at a time when the black Newfoundland was indeed replacing the formerly popular black & white. Stonehenge himself admits that he has changed his illustration of the black Newfoundland of his first edition to one of an improved breeding. 

Both dog historians have themselves not troubled "to inquire into the matter" that Sir Edwin could and did produce a large number of black animals, magnificently recreated in paint during his mature period: Prince Albert's stunning black "Eos", a greyhound, "Dash", the Duchess of Beaufort's coal-black spaniel, and "Flora", a silky-black spaniel in "Prince George’s Favorites". The latter includes an all-white pony named "Selim" and a black & white Newfoundland named "Nelson." It is true all of these were so-to-speak "portraits" commissioned by the nobility. But Sir Edwin also painted black dogs by his own choice: "Two Dogs Setting a Hare" one very black and the other white with dark freckling. "Jack in Office" includes two all-black dogs. "Laying Down the Law" has two black dogs in the group surrounding the amusing white poodle "Judge." 

The paintings cited above are only a very small sampling of the black dogs Sir Edwin produced. He was a master painter and would not have stooped to change the color of his dogs to suit "the object he had in view". He changed the background to suit the actual color of his dogs. Even in his early painting, note that in "Lion" the white area of the dog is against a dark background, while the dark head is silhouetted against the light sky: Let us hope that this evidence will lay to rest the misconception that Sir Edwin painted black & white dogs because he was unwilling or unable to paint an all black. 

Sadly enough, Stonehenge in his first edition of 1865 was writing at a time when it was fashionable to downgrade Sir Edwin who was rapidly falling from the position of most sought-after animal painter of his time, into ill-health, alcoholism, periods of insanity and death in 1873. "Few painters" says Campbell Lennie "are remembered more for their execrations and less for their excellencies than Sir Edwin Landseer." Sir Edwin's Newfoundlands, to whom he gave the name "Landseer" decades after his own death, were black and white. The black Newfoundland began to gain prominence during the last several decades of the 19th century. But were all of those black engravings of Newfoundlands really black? Surprisingly enough, I have at this writing, a color photograph of a dog called a Newfoundland by 19th century catalogers, the original painting of which I have seen, but whose color no one of the later 20th century would believe. 

Did you notice that in the last issue of NEWF TIDE, Vol. 7, No.3, that the black & white dog in "Old Newf Tales" was called a "Newfoundland" and that the book was published in 1872? I can vouch for its authenticity, I submitted it. And of all five stories about Newfoundlands, which were illustrated therein, all were black & white. 

Now that color has become a compelling issue among. breeders of the Newfoundland dog, may I suggest that a look backward, with definitely dated pictures, plus contemporary documentation, may give a key to the present and the future of our breed? As an art historian of more than 35 years, I can assure you there will be surprises. After all, if the 20th century Labrador dog is a "kissing cousin" of the contemporary black Newfs, what is the origin of the increasingly popular yellow Labrador?