Fino and Tiny

Fino and Tiny from 1791 by George Stubbs is a late double animal portrait, likely depicting two valued dogs. Named animal portraits served the same commemorative function as human portraiture in aristocratic households. Stubbs's oil technique was grounded in exhaustive anatomical study—he spent eighteen months dissecting horses at a Lincolnshire farmhouse before painting the plates for his Anatomy of the Horse (1766)—producing an exactitude of musculature and bone structure unmatched in...

The two animals are individually characterized with Stubbs's precise observational technique, each depicted with careful attention to breed characteristics and personality.