Lucian freud paintings dogs

One of the great loves of Lucian Freud’s life was his dog Pluto, a bitch whippet who he named after the Greek God of the Underworld.

His lover and frequent sitter Susanna Chancellor, wife of the Spectator editor Alexander Chancellor, introduced him to whippets (she had two) and Freud originally bought Pluto for his daughter Bella, before adopting her for himself.

He found Pluto to be a great sleeper, and thus an exemplary sitter.

He also appreciated the fact that, as a whippet, she wasn’t over affectionate, like lesser breeds.

Lucian freud paintings dogs

‘The only thing I don’t like about [dogs],’ he once said, ‘is what’s called doglike devotion.’

It is Susanna Chancellor’s reclining figure behind the animal in the above etching, made by Freud in , when Pluto was still a puppy.

It has recently been revealed, in the catalogue raisonné of Freud’s prints, that the etching was originally bigger, and included Chancellor’s head, but was later cropped. I