Seated Dog with Collar n.d.

Dirk Valkenburg made this drawing of a dog with red chalk on paper at the turn of the 18th century. It may seem like just a humble sketch, but it tells us a lot about the social life of the Dutch Republic. The image creates meaning through the most obvious of visual codes: this is clearly a domestic animal, signified as such through its close proximity to humans and most obviously by its collar. It suggests a particular set of power relations characteristic of the time, in which animals were positioned as property, reflecting prevailing social hierarchies. The Dutch Republic of the Golden Age had become an increasingly urbanized society, and this rise of urban life brought with it new forms of human-animal interaction, one that, while intimate, was very much inflected by ownership. Historians might consult household inventories from the period to learn more about the ownership of dogs, or look into the work of natural historians for information about changing attitudes toward them. The drawing reminds us that art is always embedded in a specific social and institutional context.