In the 1830s, as Louis Daguerre was fine-tuning a method that would become the first widely available photography, he made portraits of family, friends, and one four-footed subject: his dog Médor, who Daguerre’s colleague Isidore Niépce spoiled with gifts of gingerbread. In the photograph, blurry and rudimentary, the dog’s legs are splayed out, he holds a stick in his mouth, and his jowls drawn back into a grin. He has not heeded direction to adopt the grim, unsmiling expression typical of a 19th-century portrait. It is, in my opinion, the best daguerreotype of them all.
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That dogs have always been beloved subjects of photography is the expansive and uncontroversial claim of The Dog in Photography, 1839-Today by Raymond Merritt, published by Taschen. The book compiles over 400 images of dogs: from a 1890 nattily dressed hound in tophat and filigreed pipe; a family portrait of the Kennedy family on a sun-kissed patio, hanging out with a pack of six pups; and William Wegman’s liver-brown Weimaraners, their wet eyes expressing a deep, vaguely hilarious pathos.As you take in the very good dog imagery of the contemporary era, it’s good to remember that dogs have always been this great at sitting for a camera and looking lovable as heck.
Studio Bengue & Kindermann, 1890. Courtesy Hans Christian Adam, Germany.
Arnold Genthe, 1913, Courtesy The Library of Congress.
Look at that good dog!