Standing on a table covered with a patterned tablecloth, its white fur curled up like a cloud, this little dog did not move for a single second.
It had to stay still. In the 1870s, photographing an animal was almost a feat: cameras required extremely long exposures, and any tremor ruined the plate. Its owner was A. Randall, a jeweler who had access to gems and pieces of incalculable value, but chose to spend time and money immortalizing his dog.
The oldest surviving photographs of dogs date back to 1846, just a few years after photography became public. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has noted how difficult it was to portray a panting dog, impossible to instruct to pose. This little dog, however, managed it — and its portrait is still circulating nearly 150 years later.