spain, 1650's: boy, dog, fleas

thanks wikimedia {PD-Art}

Pedro Nuñez de Villavicencio (1635-1700) was a student of the great Spanish painter Murillo, and this intimate work shows that he had some of his master's feel for the telling, humble detail. This is all the more wonderful to me since I learned that he actually came from an aristocratic family in Seville and meant when young to go into the military. I would imagine that he would have had next to no experience of ordinary and poorer folk, so he had to have sought them out. Or perhaps Seville at the time was just one of those cities where all people high and low happened to mix, like New York now.

What a funny face on that dog. . . is he enjoying that? Kind of?