Monkeys are smarter than dogs. Monkeys ride bikes. Monkeys smoke cigars. Monkeys have been observed using tools. (Well, they stick twigs into termite holes in order to secure a snack -- but that's tool-use, nevertheless.) Dogs do none of these things. Dogs attack harmless mailmen while wagging their tails at, say, the serial killer next door.

But despite the monkey's evident intellectual superiority, the art world, at least, has always had an abiding fascination with dogs and has long chosen to portray them as the the noblest and most human-like dignitaries of the animal world. In order to celebrate the aesthetic allure of man's best friend, Christie's is holding "The Dog Sale," an auction of canine-related paintings from the 1600s to the 20th century.

One piece, valued as high as $1.2 million, is "Neptune" by Sir Edward Landseer, a monumental Romantic work featuring a black and white Newfoundland ostensibly gallivanting on some seaside rocks in the Scottish Highlands. But look closer. In the distance, a boat is being pulled ashore. A terrifying storm approaches. "Newfoundlands were famous for their rescues at sea," the Christie's catalog proclaims, and the painting implies that the energetic dog would, if needed, unhesitatingly save the boat's occupants from a watery death.

Another work of interest is Richard Ansdell's "Two King Charles Spaniels in a Landscape" (valued between $150,000-$200,000) in which two King Charles Spaniels pose on an elaborate red tapestry. In the background a tempest (again) appears to be brewing. The dogs, aristocrats to the core, project a certain devil-may-care attitude that even the most ardent egalitarian can admire.

Despite the fact that all of the auction's works are concerned with dogs, there is a surprising amount of variety on view. The lots contain everything from an 1880s portrait of a dog by John Singer Sargent, done for his friend Louise Burckhardt (valued at up to $80,000) to clay sculptures of pug dogs by contemporary artist Kerry Jameson ($2,000-$3,000).

The common thread between these works seems to be that all the dogs represented (and, by implication, all dogs everywhere) share a certain heroic quality. Can anyone honestly picture a chimp diving into the sea and saving a boatload of passengers from the raging waters of the North Atlantic? Landseer's masterpiece convinces us that a Newfoundland could -- and would -- do just that.

Maybe dogs have it over monkeys, after all.

-- REBECCA HARRINGTON