Nipper (1884 – September 1895), also known as the RCA Victor dog, was a dog from Bristol, England. Bred as a terrier mix, he served as the model for a 1898 painting by British painter Francis Barraud titled His Master’s Voice. This image became one of the world’s best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gramophone pairing that was used by several record companies and their associated company brands, including Berliner Gramophone and its various affiliates and successors, among them Berliner’s German subsidiary Deutsche Grammophon; Berliner’s American successor the Victor Talking Machine Co. (later known as RCA Victor and then RCA Records); Zonophone; Berliner’s (and later Victor’s) British affiliate the Gramophone Co. Ltd. (informally known as His Master’s Voice) and its successors EMI and HMV Retail Ltd.; the Gramophone Co.’s German subsidiary Electrola; and former Victor subsidiary the Japan Victor Company (JVC).
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”. 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, and the image soon became the successful trademark of the Victor Talking Machine Company and the affiliated Gramophone Company Ltd. record labels, and eventually the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), after the acquisition of the Victor company in 1929, Electric and Musical Industries Limited in 1931, and HMV. Emile Berliner registered the trademark for use in the United States on 10 July 1900.
01 - 1920’s advertisement for Victor Talking Machine.
02 - Francis Barraud’s original painting.
03 - RCA Records logo.
04 - Vinyl of “Ich küsse ihre Hand, Madame” from Gramophone Co. LTD, 1928.
05 - “His Master’s Voice” advertisement for Victrola.
