Pug in art: from the House of Orange to Hogarth's Trump

Part 1

Pugs in art before Hogarth

Pompey, a dog belonging to William the Silent, Prince of Orange, is remembered for saving him from an assassination attempt during the Dutch struggle against Spain. According to the story, Pompey heard assassins approaching his master's tent one night, then woke William by barking and scratching, saving his life. Sources differ on whether Pompey was actually a pug or a Kooikerhondje, a different Dutch breed. A statue of William the Silent at the Church of St Ursula in Delft shows Pompey lying at his feet. The House of Orange's fondness for the breed reportedly continued for generations, with pugs wearing velvet ribbons at the coronation of William III and Mary II.

His 1730 group portrait The Wollaston Family, which includes a pug, has been on loan to the New Walk Museum in Leicester since 1943. Hogarth's 1730 portrait The Fountaine Family, held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, shows a puppy believed to be Trump. A pug even appears in a mock wedding scene in Hogarth's series A Rake's Progress, painted between 1732 and 1734. An adult pug in his 1738 portrait The Strode Family, held by the Tate Gallery, may be Trump as well, though some sources say the dog belonged to Colonel Strode instead.

Part 2

Hogarth's self-portrait with his pug Trump

Hogarth's self-portrait Painter and his Pug began around 1735 and was finished in 1745. He originally planned to show himself in formal dress with a wig, then changed the picture to show himself in a cap and house coat, with Trump sitting beside him. The finished painting is held by Tate Britain. Trump was already old by the time he appears in the painting, having lived from about 1730 to about 1745. Trump's face in the painting has a noticeably longer muzzle than a modern pug's. The self-portrait also includes an easel showing Hogarth's own line of beauty symbol, along with books by Shakespeare, Swift, and Milton, which he presented as the foundations of his art. One writer on the painting described Trump as more real than the painted image of Hogarth himself. According to Tate's own description, the dog works as an emblem of Hogarth's own pugnacious character. Hogarth's biographer Ronald Paulson also read the dog's loyalty as a stand-in for Hogarth's own faithfulness to his art.

Hogarth owned several pugs during his life, including ones named Pugg, Trump, and Crab, and he was known for identifying closely with them. He was even nicknamed Painter Pugg by contemporaries. Trump also appears in Hogarth's 1746 portrait of Captain Lord George Graham in his Cabin, seated on a chair and wearing the captain's wig.

Part 3

Trump's life after the painting: sculpture, porcelain, and satire

The sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac modeled Trump in terracotta around 1741, to accompany a terracotta bust of Hogarth. In the late 1740s, the Chelsea porcelain factory turned Roubiliac's figure into a small porcelain sculpture, likely meant for admirers of Hogarth's work to display in their homes. The Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood later made his own version in black basalt, using a plaster cast bought in 1774. The original terracotta stayed with Hogarth's widow until her death in 1790, and an engraving of it was made in 1799, though the terracotta itself is now lost. Hogarth's strong identification with his dog also made him a target for satire: the watercolor painter Paul Sandby caricatured Hogarth as a pug in an engraving called Puggs Graces in 1753. Hogarth returned to the image of Trump himself in 1763, in a satirical engraving called The Bruiser, which reused his 1745 self-portrait but replaced his own likeness with that of the satirist Charles Churchill.

Part 4

Where to see pug artworks today

• Painter and his Pug and The Strode Family are at Tate Britain in London.
• The porcelain figure of Trump is in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection.
• The Fountaine Family is at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
• Captain Lord George Graham in his Cabin hangs at the National Maritime Museum.
• The Bruiser is held by the National Gallery of Art in the United States.
• The Wollaston Family has been at the New Walk Museum in Leicester since 1943.

A statue of Hogarth with Trump, made by the sculptor Jim Mathieson, was unveiled in 2001 on Chiswick High Road, near the house where Hogarth lived until his death.