Canine muses: Lucian Freud's etchings of Pluto the whippet are among his most popular and expensive work

‘I like people to look as natural and as physically at ease as animals, as Pluto my whippet,’ Lucian Freud revealed in 2002. Introduced to whippets by his lover and frequent sitter Susanna Chancellor, Freud acquired Pluto for his daughter, Bella, in 1988, but soon adopted the gangly pup as his own.

Freud delighted in her propensity for sleep (which made her an exemplary sitter) and the brindle beauty appeared frequently in Freud’s work throughout her lifetime (she also appears with tongue lolling as the logo for his daughter’s fashion label).

On the death of his lifelong companion, he lamented the loss with a final oil painting of the dog, Pluto’s Grave (2003), a poignant reflection of grief that depicts her name nestled among dead leaves of the undergrowth.

Eli, great-great-niece of his beloved Pluto, would fill the emotional void left behind in the artist’s final years. A Christmas present from Freud to his studio assistant and close friend David Dawson, the white and dun whippet captivated his imagination and his last, unfinished, work was a nude of Mr Dawson, alongside Eli, titled Portrait of the Hound (2011).

The appeal of his whippets, he told William Feaver, art critic and curator of his 2002 retrospective, was ‘their lack of arrogance, their ready eagerness [and] their animal pragmatism’.

Freud is perhaps best known for his depictions of the human form, but his dog paintings — executed with the same tenderness and insightfulness as his human portraiture — still command an audience. In 2023, Dawson, director of the Lucian Freud archive, revealed to The Times that: ‘Lucian’s dogs have become by far and away the most popular of his etchings and the most expensive, too.’

This feature originally appeared in the June 18, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

The dealer's dog

• Kempton antiques fair is a firm favourite of Toby, four, a discerning Jagdterrier cross who belongs to Westland London’s director, Laura Dadswell. ‘As much as he struggles with the early start, the bacon sandwiches are easy to sniff out,’ she reveals. ‘He’s also a great asset in negotiations—his inquisitive brow has certainly won over the regulars’

• Eleven-year-old Lucy and 15-year-old Nancy have come a long way since being rescued by Julia Boston from an A40 under-pass and the streets of Croydon, respectively. Now a familiar sight at her eponymous King’s Road, SW6, shop, both lurchers prefer 18th-century chairs to sit on (below) or, at a push, a 19th-century sofa. However, the pair are ‘terrible thieves’, reveals Sigi Cassel, Julia Boston Antiques’s director. ‘Julia once brought Eric Faveri, our beloved framer, a huge and delicious smelling saucisson back from France. In the time it took to drink a cup of coffee, it disappeared!’

• ‘Our dogs—like our business—span three generations,’ says Jonathan Coulborn, owner of Thomas Coulborn & Sons. His dynasty of fox-red labradors—12-year-old Rosie, eight-year-old Flossie and four-year-old Gnarler—may have induced various levels of inconvenience and expense over the years—destroying a passport, a shotgun licence and various pairs of slippers—‘but, mercifully, even when puppies, never chewed the legs of any antique furniture’

• Antique dealer and bespoke-furniture designer Will Green owns mother-daughter duo eight-year-old Indy and four-year-old Nova. ‘They’re always by my side when I’m out hunting for new treasures, noses to the ground, sniffing around with as much curiosity as I have,’ he says of his black labradors. ‘At home, they enjoy the best beds in the house—lounging on 19th-century Persian kilims’