Brown and White Norfolk or Water Spaniel

Brown and White Norfolk or Water Spaniel from 1778 by George Stubbs is a detailed canine portrait demonstrating his expertise beyond horses in the full range of sporting breeds. Gun dogs—spaniels, pointers, setters, and retrievers—were essential working animals in the Georgian sporting economy, valued for their intelligence, trainability, and specialized skills. Stubbs approached canine portraiture with the same observational rigor he brought to horses, documenting breed-specific physical characteristics—coat color and texture, ear shape, body proportions—with naturalist accuracy. The specific identification of the dog as a Norfolk or Water Spaniel reflects the careful cataloguing of breed types that characterized his animal subjects. The work is held at the Yale Center for British Art and contributes to the documentary record of English sporting dog breeds in the eighteenth century.

The spaniel is rendered with the same anatomical precision Stubbs brought to his horse paintings, the dog's coat texture and muscular structure carefully observed.