Famous paintings of dogs: 10 works to know and where to see them

Dogs sit beside emperors, walk with a young couple and sleep in the snow in some of the best-known paintings in the world. This guide lists 10 of them, from Titian's portrait of Emperor Charles V in 1533 to Giacomo Balla's dachshund in 1912. For each one you get the artist, the date, the museum and what the dog is doing, as the holding museum describes it.

Why dogs appear in famous paintings

Museums give three reasons for the dogs in old paintings.

• Faithfulness. The National Gallery in London says the small dog in Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait may stand for the couple's faithfulness to each other. Our guide to Renaissance painting looks at that dog and at Titian's Eleonora Gonzaga.
• Rank. The Museo del Prado in Madrid says portraits of rulers with dogs had a long tradition at the court of Burgundy, a region of France.
• Stories. The National Gallery says a dog is one of the signs of Diana, the goddess of hunting.

Many other dog paintings are portraits of a loved pet. The guide to what pet portraits are covers George Stubbs's foxhounds and Edwin Landseer's spaniel Dash, so the 10 works below are different ones.

Dogs at royal courts: 1533 and 1656

1. Emperor Charles V with a Dog, Titian, 1533 (Museo del Prado, Madrid). The emperor stands in a silver cloak and a fur coat, and a large dog is at his side. The Prado says it looks much like a portrait of the emperor in the same pose by Jacob Seisenegger, dated 1532. In a letter of 1535, Seisenegger wrote that he painted the dog from life, and that it was a female of an English breed. X-rays show that Titian changed the dog's pose as he worked. The Prado's page lists it in Room 27.

2. Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez, 1656 (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Velázquez painted this group portrait in a room of the Alcázar, the royal palace in Madrid. The Infanta Margarita, the king's young daughter, stands in the centre between two maids of honour. Velázquez shows himself at work on a large canvas, and a mirror at the back reflects the king and queen. At the front right, Nicolasito Pertusato teases a mastiff, the large dog in the corner. In 1724 the writer Antonio Palomino gave it a section of its own in his history of Spanish painters, the only painting he treated that way. The Prado lists it in Room 12.

The 1700s: a litter of puppies and a morning walk

3. Dog with pups, unknown artist, Rajasthan (Cleveland Museum of Art). Cleveland dates this painting on paper to 1780 or close to it, and places it in Ajmer, in Rajasthan. A dog is shown with its newborn puppies, which the museum says are still too young to open their eyes. The museum explains that dogs were kept in the Mughal imperial palace, with one keeper for every two hunting dogs, and that the emperor Jahangir asked the English ambassador Sir Thomas Roe for English hunting dogs. Our guides to Rajput painting and Mughal painting cover these courts.

4. Mr and Mrs William Hallett ('The Morning Walk'), Thomas Gainsborough, 1785 (National Gallery, London). William Hallett and Elizabeth Stephen walk arm in arm with a Pomeranian sheepdog, shortly before their wedding on 30 July 1785. The groom ordered the painting. The National Gallery says Gainsborough painted the dog's thick, soft coat with sparse, light brushstrokes. It hangs in Room 34.

The 1800s: grief, a Calcutta house and a dog named Tama

5. The Drowning Dog, Francisco de Goya, 1820 to 1823 (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Goya painted this scene straight onto a wall beside a door on the upper floor of his country house outside Madrid. It is one of his Black Paintings, which the Prado says are named for their dark colours and sad subjects. Only the dog's head shows, behind a wide area of colour that Goya left without detail. The dog looks toward something outside the picture. The Prado connects it with the idea that death cannot be avoided, and calls it the most mysterious of the Black Paintings. The page lists Room 67.

6. The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner, Edwin Landseer, 1837 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). In a room with little furniture, a dog rests its head on the coffin of its master, a shepherd. The V&A says it was a great success at the Royal Academy in 1837, helped by a print of it that sold widely the next year. It is on display in the British Galleries, Room 122. Landseer also painted many portraits of Queen Victoria and her pets, and our guide to Queen Victoria and her dogs covers them.

7. Two dogs in the compound of a Calcutta house, Shaikh Muhammad Amir, 1845 or close to it (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). This is a Company painting, the name for pictures made by Indian artists for British people living in India. Two salukis are in the yard of a house. On the left is General, a Feathered Saluki. On the right is the female, Aiyar, a Smooth Saluki. The V&A says it comes from a set made for a Calcutta resident, showing his house, servants and pets.

8. Tama, the Japanese Dog, Edouard Manet, 1875 or close to it (National Gallery of Art, Washington). A small, shaggy black and white dog stands in a room with wooden walls. It turns its head to the left with its pink tongue out. Manet painted its long, feathery fur with loose brushstrokes. The name "TAMA" is painted in block letters at the upper left, and what looks like a stuffed toy lies on the floor.

The 1900s: colour and movement

9. Dog Lying in the Snow, Franz Marc, 1911 or close to it (Städel Museum, Frankfurt). Marc painted his own dog, Russi, a white shepherd mix, asleep on the snow. The Städel says he wanted to see how the white of the fur changes against white snow. The museum bought the painting from Marc's widow in 1919. In 1937 the Nazi government removed it, with 76 other works, as "degenerate art". The Städel bought it back in 1961.

10. Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, Giacomo Balla, 1912 (Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, New York). A dachshund hurries along beside its owner's feet. Balla blurred and repeated the dog's body, the leash and the feet to show speed. He painted it in May 1912 while visiting a student at Montepulciano in Tuscany. In 1910, Balla and other Futurist artists had written that "all things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing".

Where to see these paintings

Painting	Artist	Date	Museum
Emperor Charles V with a Dog	Titian	1533	Museo del Prado, Madrid
Las Meninas	Diego Velázquez	1656	Museo del Prado, Madrid
Dog with pups	Unknown, Rajasthan	1780 or close to it	Cleveland Museum of Art
The Morning Walk	Thomas Gainsborough	1785	National Gallery, London
The Drowning Dog	Francisco de Goya	1820 to 1823	Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner	Edwin Landseer	1837	V&A, London
Two dogs in the compound of a Calcutta house	Shaikh Muhammad Amir	1845 or close to it	V&A, London
Tama, the Japanese Dog	Edouard Manet	1875 or close to it	National Gallery of Art, Washington
Dog Lying in the Snow	Franz Marc	1911 or close to it	Städel Museum, Frankfurt
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash	Giacomo Balla	1912	Buffalo AKG Art Museum

The room numbers in the list above are the ones each museum's page gave in September 2026. The Cleveland and Washington pages list their paintings as not on view, and the V&A shows the Calcutta painting by appointment. Check the page again before you travel.

How a modern pet portrait follows these paintings

Several of these works show one real animal that someone knew. Seisenegger painted the emperor's dog from life. Marc painted his own dog, Russi. Tama's name is on the canvas, and General and Aiyar belonged to a Calcutta household. Our guide to dogs in art goes deeper into these painters and traditions, from van Eyck's small pet to Maud Earl's grieving terrier.

A royal pet portrait keeps that idea and puts your dog or cat at the centre, dressed as a ruler. Purrealism offers 15 royal portrait styles. In the gallery, the Mysore Royal portrait shows a black labrador in a saffron turban holding a gold sceptre, and the Maharaja portrait shows a golden retriever in a red jewelled turban on a gold throne. The European styles, such as Renaissance Royal, Baroque Aristocrat and Regency Era, can be chosen in the portrait studio.

The likeness starts with your photo. Use one where your pet's eyes and markings are sharp, taken at eye level, saved as an image file of up to 5 MB. Our guide on how to photograph your pet for a portrait goes through each step.