ART | EDUCATION | HISTORY

This article explores the 45,000-year history of humans depicting animals in art, from ancient Indonesian cave paintings of wild boars to modern Etsy pet portraits.

Topics include: the domestication timeline of dogs and cats (buried with humans 12,000 years ago), the evolution of pet portraiture from Renaissance companion pieces to standalone 18th-century dog paintings, famous artists who painted pets (Anders Zorn, Henri Rousseau, Hans Holbein the Younger), historical examples of cat portraits, unexpected pet subjects like rabbits and sheep in classical paintings, and modern options for commissioning pet art.

Humans have been depicting animals through art for almost 50,000 years. Sapiens Magazine revealed that a recently discovered 45,000+ year cave painting on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi included images of an indigenous "warty" pig.

It's a safe bet that the wild boars were not anyone's pets.

We don't know when exactly people started keeping animals as companions, but according to Smithsonian Magazine, dogs had the jump in the domestication arena. Sorry cats. Take comfort in the fact that the Egyptians liked you best.

Greger Larson, who leads the University of Oxford's palaeogenomics and bio-archaeology research network, told the magazine that dogs and cats were buried with humans some 12,000 years ago. Dogs were also buried by themselves 8,000 years ago, sometimes with important items.

Scientists don't know the reason for sure, but I think we can wager a guess. We had begun to bond big time with our pets.

Immortalizing animals through art

In the article 2,000+ Years of Dogs in Art, My Modern Net's Sara Barnes said that a "charming" marble likeness of two hounds from around 1 AD to 199 AD turned up near Civita Lavinia, Italy, in 1774. By the Renaissance, the well-to-do were having their pooches painted right and left, most often as an accompaniment to their own portraits.

But in the 18th century, there were definable dog breeds — and more stand-alone paintings of some beloved dogs.

You can look at this portrait and really get an idea about the sweet personality of the animal.

It's obvious that someone really loved this dog.

Portraits were not cheap, so the fact that an animal got their own likeness without a human prop shows how important they were to their owners. And some owners secured the services of big-name artists.

Madame Rikoff's dog Charlie — the feature image above — was painted by famed Swedish artist Anders Leonard Zorn who also depicted U.S. Presidents Grover Cleveland, William H. Taft, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Can't forget about the cats

I couldn't find many stand-alone images of cats outside of the Egyptians, but I did find a lot of cats with their owners. My favorite is the one that Henri Rousseau did, titled Portrait of Monsieur X (Pierre Loti). Loti was the pseudonym of Louis Marie-Julien Viaud, a writer and naval officer.

Look at the expression of both the man and the cat, who seems to be just as active a participant as the man.

There was not a lot of biographical information about Magdaleine Pinceloup de la Grange in the below painting, but I do know that her cat was well-groomed and well-fed.

And is it me, or does she kind of look like her cat?

The woman in this portrait by Ukrainian Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko is not named, but she is obviously a cat lover, too. I'm also curious about what she is reading.

Lastly, in this very stern self-portrait by Swiss painter François Aimé Louis Dumoulin, his cat looks almost as serious as Dumoulin does.

The surprise portraiture pet

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I found numerous pictures of children with what I can only assume are their pet bunnies. There's no guesswork in the one below because it's literally called My Pet Rabbit.

According to Christie's, the artist Frank Holl was one of the most successful portraitists of the 19th century, with British statesman William Gladstone and American financier Pierpont Morgan among his subjects.

A lot more random than rabbits

Sisters Cathinca and Anna Elisabeth Glückstad were painted in 1844 by Norwegian Mathias Stoltenberg with what I can only assume is their pet sheep. It's the way the younger sister leans into it and caresses its ear that makes me think the sheep is another member of the family.

While not a traditional pet, this falcon seems to be important to the subject of the following painting. The Latin inscription tells the tale:

Robert Cheseman // at the age of 48 // in the Year of Our Lord // 1533

According to his biography in Parliament, Cheseman was both Cofferer and Keeper of the Wardrobe for King Henry VIII, among other titles. Because of this portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, one of the great artists of the 16th century, it was also assumed that Cheseman was the king's falconer.

Art historians note that he " is stroking the bird on his hand with a tender gesture."

Commemorating your pet is easy these days

You don't have to look far to find a way to capture your dog, cat, or sheep for posterity. We take thousands of photos of them, but it's also fun to have something a little artier.

Etsy has more than 50 pages of options, including these vendors.

Do it yourself painting and craft stores also will guide you through a pet painting session.

I have to give a shout-out to my own pooch, who got his portrait through a fundraiser for the shelter where we got him. Houston artist Patrick Medrano sold me an incredible image of my guy, who he mistakenly thought was a girl pup. He's a diva, so it works out perfectly.

My daughter also did a DIY version at a local studio.

Our love for animals isn't likely to subside any time soon — and neither are the images that capture their various personalities. I'd love to see yours!

Betsy Denson, 2021