White Poodle in a Punt

George Stubbs

National Gallery of Art

A dog with short, curly, white hair stands in a wooden boat facing our right almost in profile, though it turns its head to look at us in this vertical portrait painting. The dog spans nearly the width of the canvas and is close to us. The dog’s ears hang down the side of its face to its chin. Its eyes are light brown and rimmed in black, and the lower lids are pink. The dog has a thick torso covered with tight curls, and it has a short puff of a tail. Its front legs are straight and the hind legs might be slightly bent. The dog stands on a slat spanning the width of the boat, which is angled away from us to our left. The landscape behind the has a calm, sage-green body of water with a tall, willow-like tree to our left and a lower band of leafy trees to our right. A few smoke-gray clouds float over the treetops in an otherwise pale blue sky.