dog-enhanced elegance

thanks the-athenaeum.org. PD

Italian painter Antonio Ambrogio Alciati (1878-1929) began as a sentimental painter and evolved into an impressionistic portraitist, as you see here in Elegant Woman With her Dog (1915).  I was first struck by the delicious plum color of her coat.  What really grabbed me and led me to share this with you was the way she's folding the dog against her, and the wary, melancholy look on both their faces.