Artwork

Le chien qui porte a son cou le diner de son maitre (The Dog Carrying His Master's Supper)

Le chien qui porte a son cou le diner de son maitre (The Dog Carrying His Master's Supper) is an ink print by the Romanticist artist Martin Marvie. It dates from 1756 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

About this work

Overview

Created in 1756, Le chien qui porte à son cou le dîner de son maître is a hand‑coloured etching by the English printmaker Martin Marvie. The work measures a modest size typical of 18th‑century book illustrations and presents a single figure—a small dog—bearing a basket tied around its neck, the contents concealed beneath a cloth.

Subject & Meaning

The scene depicts a canine tasked with transporting its master’s evening meal, a domestic vignette that playfully anthropomorphises the animal. By showing the dog as a servant, the image comments on the everyday relationships between pets and owners, while the modest, almost humorous tone reflects the period’s taste for genre scenes that captured ordinary life with a light touch.

Technique & Style

Marvie employed a traditional copper‑plate etching process, then applied hand‑applied colour to selected areas—a practice uncommon in the mid‑1700s, which typically left prints monochrome. The line work is precise, rendering the dog’s fur and the basket’s weave with clarity, while the subtle colour accents highlight the cloth covering the plate, enhancing the narrative focus.

History & Provenance

The print was issued during a prolific phase of Marvie’s career, when he produced a series of genre images for the burgeoning market of affordable art. Original impressions were likely sold to collectors of novelty prints; surviving examples appear in several European print collections, indicating a modest but steady circulation among connoisseurs of the time.

Context

In the mid‑18th century, British printmakers frequently explored domestic and humorous subjects, catering to a growing middle‑class audience eager for affordable, decorative images. Marvie’s work aligns with this trend, echoing the light‑hearted moralizing scenes popularized by contemporaries such as William Hogarth, though with a more restrained, illustrative approach.

Legacy

While not as widely cited as larger narrative prints, this etching illustrates the period’s interest in everyday humor and the technical experimentation of hand‑colouring. It offers scholars insight into the commercial print market of the 1750s and remains a representative example of Marvie’s contribution to genre printmaking.