Tama, the Japanese Dog

A small shaggy black-and-white Japanese dog stands in a wood-panelled room, body angled to the right but head turned back over the shoulder, pink tongue out and golden-brown eyes catching the light, while a light walking stick leans against the panelling and a stuffed toy in a crimson-lined robe lies on the sage-green floor; the dog’s name, “TAMA,” is painted in tan block letters at the upper left. Edouard Manet painted his pet about 1875, loose brushstrokes evoking the feathery coat in the open, luminous manner of his last years, and the canvas is one of the rare animal portraits in his oeuvre, affectionate and entirely free of the drama of his public subjects. It passed through the hands of the critic Théodore Duret, Manet’s first biographer, and the Durand-Ruel family before entering the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, who gave it to the National Gallery of Art in 1995. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.