About Me

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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Sunday, May 25, 2014

an unusually beady eye for a dog

thanks wikimedia comons (PD-Art)
Power:  even little kids know when they have it, so it's no surprise that in this portrait of Kaiser Joseph I at the Age Of Six Years, with a Dog our young potentate sizes us up with assurance.  What's unusual, though I do run across it every so often in portrayals of the politically placed, is the look on his spaniel's face.  Here's a closeup.
Um, hello.
The artist, Benjamin Block (1631-1690) was a German Baroque portrait painter, well traveled, well connected, and eventually knighted by Leopold I, the father of this boy we see here.  If you want to see how this cool underaged customer turned out, read this.

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