The Artful Dog

Loyal dogs have always been by the side of great artists. In this celebration they are front and center. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which brought us Catnip, now presents masterpieces of dog-centric art. Each is accompanied by prose or poetry from some of the worlds great writers, humorists, and thinkers, including Edith Wharton, Groucho Marx, and William Shakespeare. A painting of puppies wrestling playfully in an American quilt is paired with Charles M. Schulz's cheerful "Happiness is a warm puppy." Other treasures reinforce the intimate bond of man and dog, from a shaggy Newfoundland acting as a cozy seat for a child in a Renoir painting to a winsome dachshund performing tricks in an early-twentieth-century photograph. Frisky and idiosyncratic, this giftable collection is as delightful as its canine subject.