Eight Classical Canines: The Dogs Hiding in Famous Paintings and Where to Hang Them for the Pet-Loving Home

Most viewers of Las Meninas remember the seven-year-old Infanta Margarita in the centre, the two attendants flanking her, the painter Velázquez himself standing at the easel on the left. Fewer remember the eighth figure in the room — the enormous Spanish mastiff lying patiently along the bottom-right edge of the canvas, occupying almost a quarter of the painting's lower register. The mastiff has a name (Spanish royal hunting-records identify him as one of the court's working dogs) and a job (he guards the princess in the same way the dwarf-jester Maribarbola guards her) and a specific gentle authority no one else in the room quite matches. He has been in the painting since 1656 and most viewers see past him. This post is for the dog-loving household that does not see past him. The eight paintings below contain or are about dogs the Western canon has been carrying for between three and four hundred years — Velázquez's mastiff, Goya's small head in the sand, Hogarth's pug, Manet's terrier, Stubbs's hunting-hounds, Renoir's boating-dog, Whistler's chihuahua, Hopper's Cape Cod evening dog. For the pet-loving home that wants the wall to recognise the household's actual fifth-member, the eight prints below are the canon.

Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656. The enormous Spanish mastiff lying along the bottom-right edge of the canvas — the dog the Western canon has been carrying since the 17th century.

1. Velázquez, Las Meninas (1656) — the enormous Spanish mastiff

Velázquez's mastiff in Las Meninas is the founding dog of the modern Western canon. The 318 × 276 cm canvas, painted in 1656 in the late period of Velázquez's career as court-painter to Philip IV of Spain, depicts a scene in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid: the seven-year-old Infanta Margarita, her two female attendants, two dwarf-jesters (the female Maribarbola and the male Nicolasito Pertusato), the painter himself, two ambiguous figures at the rear, and the mastiff along the bottom-right. The dog's role in the painting is structural: he occupies the same compositional weight as the dwarf-jesters and provides the painting's bottom-edge stabilising mass. The mastiff is depicted as physical, specific, individual — not a symbolic dog, not a heraldic dog, not a generic dog. He has texture (the slightly rough Spanish-mastiff coat), expression (a patient slightly-bored half-attention), and a precise scale relationship to the princess (the dog is roughly half her standing height, which means the dog is about 110 cm at the shoulder — a working royal hunting-mastiff, not a lapdog). Print the dog as a detail-crop at 50 × 70 cm horizontal, frame in dark walnut, mount in the hallway or in the dog's actual sleeping-corner. The Velázquez mastiff is the wall print for the household whose dog is not a small fashionable dog but a large working dog the household has organised itself around.

2. Goya, The Dog (c. 1819-23) — the small head emerging from sand

Goya's The Dog is the most haunting dog-painting in Western art and one of the most haunting paintings in the canon full-stop. The c. 1819-23 Black Painting depicts a small dog's head emerging from a sloping field of grey-and-ochre sand, looking up and to the right at something the viewer cannot see; above the dog the canvas is mostly empty, dominated by a thick yellow-brown sky that occupies more than three-quarters of the picture. Nothing else is in the painting — no figure, no horizon, no second creature. The dog is alone in the canvas and the canvas is alone with the dog. Goya painted the Black Paintings directly onto the dining-room walls of his Madrid country house at age seventy-three, in the years following the Spanish War of Independence; the paintings were transferred to canvas after his death and the original room was demolished. The Dog is the Black Paintings' emotional fulcrum. Print at 50 × 90 cm vertical (the painting's specific tall-narrow proportion), frame in black-stained ash with a wide cream-cotton mount, mount in the home-library or in the bedroom hallway. The Goya is the wall print for the household whose dog has been through serious illness and pulled through, or whose dog has died — the painting reads as recognition rather than as introduction.

3. Hogarth, The Painter and His Pug (1745) — the self-portrait with the dog

William Hogarth's The Painter and His Pug of 1745 is the most directly affectionate self-portrait of a painter-with-his-dog in Western art. The canvas depicts Hogarth himself in an unbuttoned shirt and red dressing-gown, his right hand resting on a stack of three books (Shakespeare, Milton, Swift) and a palette, his pug Trump seated in the foreground looking out at the viewer. Trump's expression is alert, slightly-impatient, fundamentally on-task; Hogarth's expression is amused. The painting argues that the painter and the pug are equals — both are looking at the viewer, both have presence, both are participating in the same self-portrait. Hogarth chose to be remembered with his dog in the same canvas, at the same scale of attention. The painting is the canonical Western statement of the artist-as-pet-companion register. Print at 60 × 70 cm vertical, frame in dark walnut, mount in the home-office or in the small entry-hall. The Hogarth is the wall print for the household whose dog is treated as the household's equal-co-resident rather than as a pet.

Hogarth's Pug Trump is not currently in this site's catalogue but reproductions are widely available and the painting is in the British public-domain (Hogarth d. 1764). When ordering, look for the title "The Painter and His Pug" or the alternative "Self-Portrait with Pug Trump" — both refer to the same 1745 canvas held in a London collection.

4. Manet, Tama the Japanese Dog (c. 1875)

Edouard Manet's Tama the Japanese Dog of approximately 1875 is the strongest 19th-century French painting of a single small dog. The 60 × 50 cm canvas depicts a small black-and-white Japanese Chin breed (a court-lapdog originally bred in Heian-era Kyoto and Edo, exported to the West during the 1870s opening of Japan) standing alert on a Persian rug with a small Japanese doll in the background. Manet's specific painting decision is to render Tama at full alertness — ears forward, eyes wide, weight balanced on all four feet — rather than at decorative repose. The dog is a working participant in the painting rather than a still-life prop. The painting is the canonical Western statement of the small-fashionable-dog register the late 19th century inherited from the new Japanese trade routes. Print at 50 × 60 cm vertical, frame in slim black-stained European ash, mount in the small living-room or above the small writing-desk. The Manet is the wall print for the household whose dog is small, fashionable, and at full alertness when guests arrive.

Tama is also not currently in this site's catalogue. The painting is full PD (Manet d. 1883) and the canvas itself is in a Cardiff collection.

5. Stubbs, hunting hounds in landscape (1760s-80s) — the working-dog group portraits

George Stubbs (1724-1806) painted more dogs than any other major English artist of the 18th century. His dog portraits — most often hounds, terriers, and spaniels in landscape, sometimes paired with their human masters and sometimes alone — are the canonical statements of the English working-dog register. Stubbs's specific painterly virtue is anatomical precision: he dissected horses and dogs to study musculature, and the dogs in his paintings have specific recognizable breeds, specific identifiable working-roles, and specific personality registers. The 1762 A Couple of Foxhounds depicts two foxhounds at full alert in front of a Lincolnshire stable; the late 1780s Brown and White Norfolk or Water Spaniel depicts a single retriever at a duck-blind. Print any of Stubbs's dog canvases at 60 × 90 cm horizontal, frame in dark walnut, mount in the country-house hallway, in the home-office, or above the dog's sleeping basket. The Stubbs dogs are the wall prints for the household whose dog is a specific working-breed (Labrador, English setter, springer spaniel, working collie) rather than a generic-mix or a small-fashion breed.

6. Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-81) — the boating-restaurant dog

Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party of 1880-81 contains a small dog in the lower-left corner whose identity is documented: a small Brussels-griffon-type dog named Bob, belonging to the painter's future wife Aline Charigot (the young woman in the lower-left who is holding and kissing the dog). The Renoir painting is the canonical Impressionist statement of the long-summer-Sunday-lunch register — fourteen figures on the riverside terrace of the Maison Fournaise at Chatou on the Seine, the small Bob held high in Aline's hands as if introduced to the viewer. Renoir's specific choice is to make Bob a named family-member-participant in the painting's social fabric. The dog has a place at the lunch. Print the painting at 80 × 110 cm horizontal, frame in unstained European oak, mount in the dining-room or in the kitchen-dining transition. The Renoir is the wall print for the household whose small dog is a regular guest at the household's actual dinners — the dog who has a chair at the table.

7. Whistler, his own chihuahua Beppa — the painter's personal dog

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) owned a small chihuahua-type dog named Beppa throughout his late London period in the 1880s-90s; the dog appears in studio photographs of Whistler at his Chelsea house, in the painter's correspondence ("Beppa is poorly today and wants the house warmer"), and in at least one small portrait sketch. Whistler's small dog is the canonical statement of the late-19th-century aesthetic-bachelor register — the small companion-dog of the painter or writer who lives alone and arranges the household around an exact small set of preferences. Beppa is in this list as a category rather than as a specific painting; reproductions of Whistler's Beppa are difficult to find but the category is real. For the wall, print one of Whistler's late Nocturnes of the Thames (already discussed elsewhere on this site) and let the small companion-dog be the household's actual Beppa rather than a painted Beppa. The Whistler is the wall print for the household whose small dog is the only other resident the household has organised itself around.

8. Hopper, Cape Cod Evening (1939) — the late-American dog at the edge of the lawn

Edward Hopper's Cape Cod Evening of 1939 is the most precise 20th-century painting of the suburban-American dog at the edge of the lawn. The canvas depicts a middle-aged couple in front of their grey-shingled Cape Cod house at the long-summer-evening hour: the man stands in the foreground in worn workwear and ducks his head to call the family dog (a black-and-white border-collie type), the dog stands at the right-edge of the lawn looking off toward the dry-grass field, the woman sits behind on the steps looking down. The dog will not come when called. The painting is the strongest Western statement of the specific suburban-American mood of the late-summer evening — the family dog who has its own attention, the lawn-edge that is the limit of the household, the dry-grass field beyond that the dog is choosing instead. Print at 70 × 100 cm horizontal, frame in slim black-stained European ash, mount in the suburban-American living-room above the small console-table. The Hopper is the wall print for the household whose dog has its own outside-attention and the household has learned to respect it.

Note: Hopper died in 1967; Cape Cod Evening enters full US public-domain in 2035 (70 years after his death + author-life). Use only confirmed-license reproductions if hanging this painting before then.

How to mount the canine-canon wall in the pet-loving home

Three rules govern the dog-painting wall. First: MATCH THE DOG. The wall print should match the household's actual dog. Velázquez's mastiff is for the household with a large working dog; Goya's small head is for the bereaved household; Hogarth's pug is for the household whose dog is the household's equal; Manet's Tama is for the small-fashion-breed home; Stubbs's hounds are for the working-breed home; Renoir's Bob is for the small companion dog at the table; Whistler's Beppa is for the single-resident-plus-small-dog home; Hopper's collie is for the suburban-American household whose dog has its own attention. The print is more powerful when it matches the household's specific reality. Second: HANG NEAR THE DOG'S ACTUAL ROOM. The painting should be in the room the dog actually sleeps in, eats in, or stands at the door of — the kitchen, the hallway, the door-corner, the dog-basket wall. Hanging the dog painting in a guest-only room dilutes the recognition. Third: LOWER MOUNTING HEIGHT. The dog painting should mount slightly lower than the standard 145 cm canvas-centre, at approximately 130-140 cm, so that the dog in the painting is closer to the actual dog's eye-level. Both household members (human, dog) participate in the painting at scale.

Key takeaways

• Western painting has been carrying dogs for more than four hundred years. Eight specific famous-dog paintings cover the canonical dog-archetypes the household-with-dog can recognise: working mastiff, bereaved companion, equal-co-resident pug, small fashion-breed, working hunting-hound, lunch-table small dog, single-resident small companion, suburban dog with its own attention.

• Eight canine pairings: (1) Velázquez Las Meninas mastiff = large working dog. (2) Goya The Dog small head = the bereaved or pulled-through-illness household. (3) Hogarth The Painter and His Pug = dog as equal co-resident. (4) Manet Tama the Japanese Dog = small-fashion-breed household. (5) Stubbs hunting hounds = working-breed household. (6) Renoir Luncheon of the Boating Party (Bob) = small dog at the dinner table. (7) Whistler's Beppa (category) = single-resident with small companion-dog. (8) Hopper Cape Cod Evening = suburban dog with its own outside-attention.

• Three room rules: (1) MATCH THE DOG — the wall print works strongest when it matches the household's actual dog. (2) HANG NEAR THE DOG'S ACTUAL ROOM — kitchen, hallway, door-corner, basket-wall, never a guest-only room. (3) LOWER MOUNTING HEIGHT — 130-140 cm canvas-centre instead of the standard 145 cm, so the painted dog and the actual dog meet at compatible eye-levels.

• Frame guidance: dark walnut as default for the Spanish, French, and English dogs (Velázquez, Manet, Stubbs, Hogarth). Black-stained ash for the Goya (Black Paintings register) and the Hopper (American 20th-c. register). Unstained European oak for the Renoir (Impressionist warm-summer register).

• Public-domain status: Velázquez (d. 1660), Hogarth (d. 1764), Stubbs (d. 1806), Goya (d. 1828), Manet (d. 1883), Renoir (d. 1919), Whistler (d. 1903) are all full PD. Hopper (d. 1967) enters full US PD in 2035 — use confirmed-licence reproductions of Cape Cod Evening before then.

Browse fine prints of the classical-canine paintings discussed above in the archive at zocineartdesign.etsy.com.