Many theories of the origin of the Weimaraner have been advanced, but there are few documented historical facts; silver-grey dogs are shown in paintings by
Antoon van Dyck in the seventeenth century and by
Jean-Baptiste Oudry in the eighteenth. The breed is believed to have originated in the area of the city of
Weimar (then in
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, now in the state of
Thuringia) – the city from which its name derives. It is sometimes claimed that the dogs were kept at the court of
Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, in the early nineteenth century. From 1879 the dogs were considered to be a blue variant of the
German Short-haired Pointer, and were eligible for registration in the
stud-book of the . They first appeared at a
dog show in 1880, when fourteen examples were presented in
Berlin. These were of three differing types, from three different kennels: the traditional Thüringer Hund; the Weißenfelser Hund, which was rather more elegant; and the Sanderslebener, which was intermediate between the two. The Weimaraner was recognised as a distinct breed in 1891. A
breed standard was drawn up in 1896, and in 1897 a
breed association was established in
Erfurt with the name ; this was soon changed to . In the early years of the twentieth century – the time of the
Great War – the Weimaraner came close to extinction; it was reconstituted from the few surviving examples of the breed. It was definitively accepted by the
Fédération Cynologique Internationale in 1954. In the fifteen years from 2007 to 2021, the annual number of new registrations in Germany averaged about 485, with a low of 390 and a high of 607. == Characteristics ==