togetherness: a captain and his dog

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:US)

What an affectionate dog.  He must have been attracted by the sound of the flute his master was playing.  This is the portrait of Captain Stevens, painted circa 1795 by the British artist Francis Wheatley (1747-1801).  Wheatley's bio on Wikipedia is brief, but packs a punch or two: huge debts, elopement to Ireland with another man's wife, eventual marriage to one of his models (whom after his death became Mrs. Alexander Pope, and thereby wife to one of the greatest British poets).  Of this wistful captain and his fluffy friend, we know no more; only that Wheatley painted him in an academic but romantic manner, restrained, yet still with an aura of yearning.