Head of a Dog

Auguste Renoir

National Gallery of Art

The head and floppy ears of a dog with a delicate muzzle are loosely painted in this vertical portrait. The dog’s head is cocked to our left, and it looks at us with large, glistening black eyes. Its fur is mottled caramel brown, black, and dark gray except for a white blaze on its forehead and down around its mouth. A silver bell glints on a black collar. The dog’s body fades out below the collar, and that area and the background are painted with strokes of oyster white and a few areas of shale blue. The artist signed the lower left corner, “Renoir.”