The little dog sitting loyally in the middle of the empty floor can be obscured by the lamp that lights the painting. It is a white dog; that's certainly significant. It looks like a Maltese, the ancient dog of Malta, bred for royalty. In a preparatory drawing for this painting preserved in the British Museum, the animal was not a dog, but a cat or a ferret. One wonders what influenced the change, since every object in these paintings is symbolic.
Vittore Carpaccio
b. Venice 1463 - d. 1525
This most important Venetian painter was the son of a furrier. His earliest known work is dated 1490 - 'The Arrival of St. Ursula at Cologne'. Carpaccio regularly signed his works and surprisingly many documents survive which tell of his career. He painted mostly for Venetian churches but also exported a good deal to the surrounding countryside. He is known mostly as a narrative painter. He assisted Giovanni Bellini at the Doges' Palace in 1507. Some of his most important cycle paintings were destroyed by fires at the Doges' Palace and the Scuola Grande di San Marco. He spent seven years on his cycle of St. Ursula paintings (currently at the Accademia). Perhaps his most important group of paintings remains in situ at San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. He also painted many devotional paintings for private patrons. Vasari called him a portrait painter of note. Unfortunately after his death his portraits were lost –they were not signed—and Vasari placed Carpaccio in the shadow of the Bellini. It wasn't until the 19th Century when John Ruskin came along that Carpaccio was restored to the Pantheon of Venice's painters. He stands today near if not at the top.
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1) Scuola di San Giorgio Schiavone, Exterior [90]
