Head of a Dog

Renoir's Head of a Dog is an atypical work within his output, reflecting the genre of animal portraiture that had a long tradition in French painting — from Oudry through Courbet — but that Renoir practised only occasionally. Dogs appeared in some of his domestic scenes and figure paintings as incidental presences, but a standalone canine portrait suggests a specific commission or personal affection for a particular animal. The work demonstrates the same attentiveness to surface and warmth that he brought to human faces, treating the dog's coat with the same sensuous interest as a woman's hair.

The dog's coat is rendered with long, directional strokes that follow the flow of fur, warm brown and golden tones built up to suggest texture and sheen. Renoir gives the face — particularly the eyes — a degree of individuality unusual in animal painting, treating this as genuinely a portrait rather than a generic canine type. The background is kept neutral and indefinite.