Description:  Inscribed bottom center on the remains of the old mount in pen and red ink: AGOSTINO; in brown ink: Questo e quel sue cane per cui mosse tante risa. Numbered at lower right on mount in pen and brown ink: 10, struck out, 2, struck out, the another 2, struck out and 783 (Sparre)

Verso: Study for a drapery over a leg and a sleeve. Black chalk, grey wash

Tessin acquired this vibrant portrait of a dog in a group of five sheets of animal studies attributed to Agostino Carracci. Tessin believed the inscription to be by Agostino himself and the sketch to be of Agostino's own dog. Walter Vitzthum first identified it as Pontormo's study for the dog in his fresco of "Vertumnus and Pomona", Poggio a Caiano, 1520-21. Like Pontormo's other drawings of animals (See Uffizi 6518F), one has the sense of the personality of the animal. The painting is almost identical to the preparatory squared drawing; only the tail of the dog was altered. The chalk wash drawing on the verso is for the same fresco commission. Janet Cox-Rearick has shown that the swathe of drapery that cascades to the right is the drapery that falls over the exposed leg of Pomona. What at first glance appears to be a leg on the left half of the drawing is actually a sleeve, perhaps that of Pomona. The curved horizontal line at the center of the sheet is a slight indication of Pomona's kneecap [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 1158]

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Jacopo Pontormo | Hundstudie | Nationalmuseum