dogs for your drapes

Courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

Considering how alertly these hunting dogs leap upon the boars and hinds in this panel, I'm surprised at how calm the leopards appear.  The object's page at the Indianapolis Museum of Art doesn't indicate where it was made; were leopards part of the scenery there, or did a European workshop include them to show the valor of the patron's hounds? This textile was made circa 1600, and still retains luscious color. 

the king's white squirrel

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

He's an odd-looking fellow, but he seems happy enough to stay put and have a nibble.  This is a white squirrel presented as a gift to Sweden's King Charles XI in July of 1696. He liked it so much that he commissioned its portrait from court painter David Klocker Ehrenstrahl, a prolific Rococo-influenced artist whose work encompassed the royal horses as well as the courtiers.  Ehrenstrahl also painted this sympathetic portrait of a dog with short spine syndrome.

cat ride

Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment
https://www.freersackler.si.edu/object/F1953.31/

Leave it to the cat to find the warmest, cushiest seat handy, even if it's on the human.  This work by the great Persian miniaturist Reza Abbasi (c. 1565-1635) is titled "Man with Cat," and though it measures merely 3 11/16" x 2 x 1/16" it has a snug presence. Abbasi was celebrated for the grace and versatility of his lines, and you can see that very well here. Compare the bold strokes that establish the man's body with the sketched, washed lines of the tree, and then the incredibly fine work of the cat's face as he savors his perch.

a lament for a lovely steer, 1600's

Here's something a little different: a bucolic poem in which a sheperdess mourns her favorite, beloved steer, done in by a dog bite.  This bucolic (poem about shepherds and herding) was written by the English cleric/poet Robert Herrick.  Note: a "netherdess" is an archaic word for "a female cowherd."

A BUCOLIC BETWIXT TWO: LACON AND THYRSIS
Lacon. For a kiss or two, confess,
What doth cause this pensiveness,
Thou most lovely neatherdess?
Why so lonely on the hill?
Why thy pipe by thee so still,
That erewhile was heard so shrill?
Tell me, do thy kine now fail
To fulfil the milking-pail?
Say, what is't that thou dost ail?

Thyr. None of these; but out, alas!
A mischance is come to pass,
And I'll tell thee what it was;
See, mine eyes are weeping ripe.

Lacon. Tell, and I'll lay down my pipe.

Thyr. I have lost my lovely steer,
That to me was far more dear
Than these kine which I milk here:
Broad of forehead, large of eye,
Parti-colored like a pie,
Smooth in each limb as a die,
Clear of hoof, and clear of horn,
Sharply pointed as a thorn;
With a neck by yoke unworn,
From the which hung down by strings
Balls of cowslips, daisy rings,
Enterplaced with ribbanings;
Faultless every way for shape;
Not a straw could him escape;
Ever gamesome as an ape,
But yet harmless as a sheep.
Pardon, Lacon, if I weep;
Tears will spring where woes are deep.
Now, ai me! ai me! Last night
Came a mad dog, and did bite,
Aye, and killed my dear delight.

Lacon. Alack, for grief!

Thyr. But I'll be brief.
Hence I must, for time doth call
Me, and my sad playmates all,
To his evening funeral.
Live long, Lacon; so adieu.

Lacon. Mournful maid, farewell to you;
Earth afford ye flowers to strew.

-- Judson, Alexander Corbin, 1883-. Seventeenth-century Lyrics. Chicago, Ill.: The Universityof Chicago press, 1932. 50-51.

twelve children and a dog

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:100)

Baroness Krisztina Nyáry de Bedegh's life was brief by our standards (she passed away at 37 in 1641). According to the requirements of her time and station you could say she made the most of it: she had no less than twelve children, most with her second husband Count Nikolaus Esterhazy, Palatine of Hungary.  As befitting the image of a loyal wife, she's portrayed here in 1626 (age 22)  in decorous pose complete with small dog as living marker of her fidelity.  Here's a slightly better look.

Of course a highborn lady had very little hand in raising her own children then, but as always I imagine a dog's company would still be restful.