3-028-248 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Catching Flies," by B. Riviere, 1870. Engraving of a painting. '...his master...does not pamper his pet by overfeeding: witness the thin, wiry legs...to say nothing of that very clean-picked, half-consumed bone...adapting a popular proverb, "like dog, like master"...wandering vagrants both, probably casuals, chiffoniers, gipsies. It is a blessed arrangement that often our cares diminish as our social position is abased. So is it, perhaps, in the canine world; so is it, perhaps, with our model. He has found his humble and slender meal on the ground...and now, having no other care in life, and being naturally an idle dog, he amuses himself by "catching flies" before taking his customary after-dinner nap. But, stay; it is probably those flies that interrupt his siesta! Like the flame to the moth, he is evidently an attraction to them, and their power of irritation may be better estimated from the drawing than our Engraving, because in the former you may see how very thin is that ragged coat - you may even see the pink skin showing through, and can therefore better understand why the poor tormented cur wishes to complete his meal on those airy nothings, and give them a local habitation where they can no longer torture his exterior integument'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.