A Lady with a Dog 

Giuseppe Maria Crespi painted ‘A Lady with a Dog’ at an unknown date. Here, Crespi has presented a woman in profile holding a dog. Dogs were commonly included in portraiture from the 16th century onwards, symbolizing loyalty and high social status. They were a way to associate the sitter with aristocratic values and the leisured classes. Looking at the painting’s formal qualities, the loose brushwork and limited color palette seem to be deliberately downplaying the status of the sitter. Crespi was working in Bologna in a period where the Carracci Academy had become the established style. Crespi's naturalistic style, seen here, can be regarded as a subtle form of social critique, where the artist challenges the grand manner of official academic painting. To understand the artist's influences better, we could look into 18th-century Bolognese society and the artistic institutions active at the time. It is crucial to consider the social conditions that shaped the artist's choices and the cultural values reflected in his art.