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White Dog
Wenceslaus Hollar (after Adriaen Jacobz Matham (Dutch, 1599-1660))
1649
- Medium
- Etching on ivory laid paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Plate: 7.7 × 12.2 cm (3 1/16 × 4 13/16 in.); Sheet: 15.5 × 21.2 cm (6 1/8 × 8 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- Bohemia
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of James Wells
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Images of dogs in the early modern period could have allegorical or moral meanings or simply offer literal portraits. Wenceslaus Hollar’s profile study of a popular type of dog likely presents its sitter as a status symbol as well as someone’s pet. While the untamed lion-like mane could belong to a small poodle, this engraving is sometimes thought to represent a Bolognese dog, an Italian breed owned by and portrayed with members of the Gonzaga family in the sixteenth century and later idolized by Catherine the Great of Russia.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
