Bolognese dog 1728 - 1738

Curator: Well, if that isn't the feistiest porcelain pooch I've seen all day! He looks like he’s just caught a squirrel and isn’t giving it up without a fight. What do you make of him? Editor: He’s…unsettling. There’s an anxiety in the upturned mouth, perhaps a guarded defensiveness. I can imagine how porcelain figures such as this one produced in the 18th century Meissen Manufactory can communicate a world of social and political tension through its symbolic representations. Curator: Absolutely. And he’s not wrong – the "Bolognese Dog" crafted between 1728 and 1738 does sit rather erect, like a little king on his throne, wouldn’t you say? Editor: These decorative arts existed as signifiers of elite taste and wealth in a highly stratified society. This dog, rendered with a somewhat jarring, yet stylish, rococo flair, performs status, both guarding and proclaiming it. Curator: Oh, the Rococo excess is definitely there, like the cherry on top of a slightly demented cake. I adore how they captured that wiry Bolognese coat with such…zeal. But there's an undeniable strangeness. It's like the canine version of uncanny valley. Editor: Think about the global trade networks necessary for such delicate porcelain to arrive in Europe. And who owned dogs such as this one? Dogs have historically acted as companions of ruling classes. Perhaps the manic expression reflects their fraught and isolated position atop hierarchical systems? Curator: It certainly offers a potent representation, whatever the message may be. It strikes me as slightly mischievous, perhaps knowing something we don’t. It's all terribly clever. Editor: Right—we should never forget that supposedly "harmless" images often served to bolster existing power dynamics or challenge established norms. Curator: A fancy of an elite gone slightly sideways... A bizarre beauty. Well said. Thank you!