CRIVELLI TO VERONESE 



The Daughter of Roberto Strozzi (Berlin) caresses a 

 beautifully painted little red-and-white spaniel, whose 

 attention is divided between the spectator and the food 

 its little mistress is offering it. The ears are slightly 

 raised, and there is nothing rigid about the sitting pose : 

 imminent movement is suggested. Titian frequently 

 painted this toy breed. It is to be found in the back- 

 ground of the portrait of Eleanora Gonzaga, Duchess of 

 Urbino (Florence, Uffizi), and on the bed of Venus in 

 two pictures in the same gallery, in one case asleep, in 

 the other barking at a partridge. It tries to escape 

 from the painful sight of Philip II. dedicating his Son to 

 Victory (Madrid, Prado), and walks, on a rather larger 

 scale, with Tobias and the Angel (Venice, S. Marziale). 



In an interesting recent book it is stated that the 

 first record we have of red-and-white toy spaniels in 

 Europe is in Titian's pictures, and that their origin is 

 probably explained by the pairing of a Chinese dog 

 with the native Italian type.^ Palma Vecchio also 

 painted this dog. 



* " In Italy and Malta the indigenous dogs were the shock-dog and the 

 ' Pomeranian ' Militaeus, but Italy traded with China from the eighth and 

 ninth centuries onwards, and I thought the secret of the puzzling upspring- 

 ing of the new type might lie in a cross between an indigenous dog and a 

 red-and-white variety of Chinese dog imported to Italy. This Chinese dog 

 I traced with infinite trouble, and he was admittedly the foundation of 

 the red-and-white Toy."— Hon. Mrs. Neville Lytton, Toy Dogs and their 

 Ancestors^ 191 1. 



91 



