Thomas Gainsborough's dog paintings: the story behind Tristram and Fox

Part 1

Who was Thomas Gainsborough

Gainsborough was born in 1727 and died in 1788. Early in his career he painted mostly landscapes and worked as an art restorer, hoping to be a landscape artist, but the greater demand for portraits pushed him toward that more lucrative path. He worked in the spa town of Bath before moving to London, where he became one of the founders of the Royal Academy.

Part 2

Tristram and Fox, Gainsborough's own dogs

One of Gainsborough's dog paintings shows two dogs believed to be his own pets, named Tristram and Fox. The oil painting dates from around 1775 to 1785 and is held by the Tate in London. The identification of the dogs as Tristram and Fox is not fully certain, since Gainsborough himself never titled or engraved the work. Even so, you can see why the story stuck: a chalk sketch of two dogs was later turned into a print inscribed with the names Tristram and Fox as Gainsborough's favorites.

The names themselves tell you something about Gainsborough's humor. Tristram is thought to be named after the hero of Laurence Sterne's novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Fox was probably named for his fox-like appearance, though the name may also have poked fun at the politician Charles James Fox. A later biographer even recorded that Gainsborough sometimes signed apology notes to his wife as Fox, addressed to her pet spaniel Tristram, with the real dog Fox supposedly carrying the note in his mouth.

If you are trying to picture the breeds, the sources are honest that this is tricky, since dog breeds looked different in the eighteenth century than they do now. Fox, with his pointed folded ears and feathered coat, looks like a collie-type dog, perhaps similar to a Shetland Sheepdog. Tristram, with floppy silken ears, looks more like a spaniel.

Part 3

The Pomeranians that belonged to a friend

The painting, called Pomeranian and Puppy, dates from around 1777 and is now at the Tate in London, having been bequeathed by Mrs Arthur James in 1948. The breed was usually medium-sized in Gainsborough's time, even though some smaller Poms did exist. Pomeranians belong to a group of dogs called spitzes, known for long thick fur, pointed upright ears, and a tail that curls over the back. The breed is thought to have originated in the region once called Pomerania, which covered parts of what are now northern Poland and eastern Germany.

Pomeranian-type dogs had been known in England since at least the sixteenth century, and the breed was a favorite of Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III. In Gainsborough's era the breed was most often called the fox dog in England, and the Pomeranian in the painting was a rare dog there at the time, possibly brought over from Germany by Abel himself. One account claims that when the finished portrait first arrived at Abel's house, the mother dog was so startled by her own likeness that she flew at the canvas in a jealous fury, so the picture had to be moved out of her sight.

Part 4

A friendship paid for in paintings and music lessons

You might wonder why Gainsborough painted a friend's dogs at all, and the answer has to do with music. Carl Friedrich Abel was a composer and the last great player of the viola da gamba, an instrument that came before the modern cello. Gainsborough loved music so much that he once said he felt he was meant to be a musician rather than a painter, and the viola da gamba was his favorite instrument. The two men likely met in Bath and became close friends there. Gainsborough is said to have given his portrait of Abel's Pomeranians to his friend in exchange for lessons on the viola da gamba.

Gainsborough also painted a full-length portrait of Abel himself around 1777, with one of the same Pomeranians resting at his feet. That portrait was shown at the Royal Academy in 1777 and was warmly received, giving Gainsborough's career a boost. When Abel died in 1787, Gainsborough wrote a grieving letter about him, a sign of how deep their friendship had become.

What this means for you and your dog

You do not need a famous friendship to see your own dog the way Gainsborough saw Tristram, Fox, and Abel's Pomeranians. He was praised for individualized depictions that seem to capture dogs' likenesses and personalities just as his portraits of people did. That same instinct, to notice what makes your dog particular rather than generic, is available to anyone with a dog worth looking at closely.