In the nineteenth century, lifelike portraiture of animals became a respected genre in its own right. An example is this painting of Figaro, Abraham Willet’s St Bernard dog. This good natured animal probably lived in the Willet’s villa in France rather than in their townhouse on Amsterdam’s Herengracht. There would have been plenty of space there for a large dog to wander about. In the painting, the dog is lying in its kennel on a crumpled edition of Le Figaro, the French newspaper. The picture is by a leading animal painter of the day, Wouter Verschuur II, who was a friend of Willet’s. In 1878, the canvas was shown at the Paris Exposition, having previously appeared at Amsterdam’s Arti et Amicitiae art society.