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This image comes from Edward Topsell's "The History of Four-Footed Beasts," published in 1658 (30 years after his death) and written in 1607 (image from the University of Houston Digital Library https://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll18/item/116).
Topsell, an Englishman focusing on European dog breeds in his bestiary, wrote:  "The manifold attributes of Dogs among all Writers, do decipher unto us their particular nature; as that they are called sharp, bitter, fierce . . . bold, eared for attention, affable, swift, speedy, clamorous, wilde, faithful, horrible, rough . . . cruell, ungentle, unclean, hurtful, biting, filthy . . . watchful . . . quick-nosed . . . ." By this account, early modern Europeans found dogs  a paradoxical species to be reviled and revered.

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Abraham Hondius, c. 1671-1672, found in the exhibit book for Best in Show: The Dog in Art from the Renaissance to Today (2006): 34; it appears to be from a private collection (Walter F. Goodman and Robert A. Flanders). This Dutch image represents what author Mary Elizabeth Thurston describes as the Renaissance era's "Golden Age of Dog Breeding." It shows the wide variety of dogs available among elite circles via a network of breeders, with noblemen vying to create unique breeds of their own. If Renaissance men were obsessed with bringing order to nature, dogs provided them a unique opportunity to manipulate it.

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December, from the calendar of the Book of Hours (Les Tres Riches Heures) of the Duke of Berry

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December, from the calendar of the Book of Hours (Les Tres Riches Heures) of the Duke of Berry

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Limbourg Brothers, before 1416, Musee Conde Chantilly).
There are a plethora of depictions of dog hunts, often with noblemen taking center stage. By the early modern period, hunting was no longer necessary for survival, and peasants were forbidden from it and from owning hunting dogs. Larger peasant working dogs were even deliberately disfigured in order to prevent "poaching." Hunting dogs, unlike the plethora of peasant working dogs, were a symbol of power and prestige (Hurston, 70-72).

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Portrait with his dog by Jakob Seisenegger, 1532 from:

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
The prized or beloved dogs of rulers and noblemen lived comfortable lives, enjoying fine meats, sleeping in their masters' beds, and being adorned with collars made of precious metals and jewels (Hurston, 75-77). This royal treatment may denote pride in their accomplishments as breeders, devotion to their companion animals, or both. Kaiser Karl's dog is wearing a collar that appears to match his own gold accessories.

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Jean Théodore de Bry, 1598; illustration from Bartolome de Las Casas' A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b20000085/f14.item/
The Spanish conquistadors brought mastiffs and greyhounds with them to the Americas, which were trained for war and killing people.  According to Las Casas, who witnessed conquest first-hand on Hispaniola, "“It has already been stated that in the New World the Spaniards have a number of wild and ferocious dogs which they have trained especially to kill people and tear them to bits. It is not difficult to discover who are the real Christians and who are not when one learns that, to feed these dogs, they ensure that whenever they travel they always have a ready supply of natives, chained and herded like so many calves on the hoof."  They stand as evidence of Europeans manipulating the more violent tendencies of "man's best friend."

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A Dwarf with Medici Dogs in Boboli Gardens

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A Dwarf with Medici Dogs in Boboli Gardens

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Tiberio di Tito, ca. 1620-1625, from an English Private Collection; (found in exhibition book for Best in Show, 2006)
"Lady's" lapdogs have been around since Ancient Greece and Rome. Like hunting dogs, these dogs were primarily under the domain of the wealthy. In the Medici court, they were part of a general enthusiasm for dogs and dog breeding, and their fine accessories are notable. The little person pictured was likely either a caretaker or breeder of the dogs. The dog he is holding is probably a Bolognese, with a number of spaniels and others surrounding him. The Bolognese was a toy breed once sought by the Medici, a Bichon Tenerife-descended dog related to the Bichon Frise, Havanese, and Maltese. In 1668 a Medici agent was charged with obtaining several tiny ("almost to the point of deformation") Bolognese dogs to be given as presents to a particular lady (Bowron, 14-15).

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Jan van Eyck, 1434; from the National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-van-eyck-the-arnolfini-portrait
According to the National Gallery, this portrait of Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife was not a wedding portrait and his wife is not pregnant, as has often been assumed. Arnolfini was a member of a wealthy merchant family living in Bruges. They are situated in a "well-appointed room," suggesting that the portrait was a statement regarding his wealth and status. As such, the small pet dog at the center, a luxury possession reserved for the wealthy, serves as another symbol of his status.

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Master of 1499 (Anonymous Artist from the early Netherlandish School), 1501-1504 from Museum Voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent https://www.mskgent.be/en/featured-item/margaret-austria-worship-virgin.
There are many artistic depictions of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands (1480-1530) with a dog. Curiously, this personal religious devotional portrait includes a lapdog and a monkey, demonstrating the contradictory symbolic value of dogs in Renaissance art.  Notably, Margaret of Austria's tomb depicts a large devoted dog at her feet, suggesting its fidelity to her. In different ways, both depictions represent faithfulness, a dog's greatest attribute.

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Engraving after Peter Paul Rubens (original ca. 1610-1615), printed by Giussepe Vanni, 1770-1782 from the Met Museum https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/771716
Group portrait of Peter Paul Rubens with three humanists: his brother Philip Rubens, Johannes Woverius and the teacher of both of them, Justus Lipsius.  Lipsius is pictured with one of his beloved dogs. He had such affection for his dogs that when one of them died, he built a tomb for him and wrote an epigraph. Lipsius also had portraits painted of each of his dogs. He claimed his love of dogs was genetic, with his parents and grandmother sharing in his devotion (Papy, 170-171).

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Saint Christopher (depicted with the head of a dog)

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Saint Christopher (depicted with the head of a dog)

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Anonymous Artist, 17th century, Kermira, Cappadocia http://www.ebyzantinemuseum.gr/?i=bxm.en.exhibit&id=59
St. Christopher was said to be a giant Canaanite who carried people across the river on his back. Christopher was a pagan, and after demanding that God prove himself by giving him the gift of speech, he was punished by the Christ child. Subsequently, he devoted himself to God, and was later martyred by the Romans. He serves as a symbol of conversion of a pagan into a "civilized" Christian. In the Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox Churches from the 5th to early 19th centuries, he was depicted as a cynocephalus, or dog-headed man. Though Eastern in origin, the earliest depictions of him as a dog-headed man can be found in Western manuscripts (White, 35) The Feast of St. Christopher was also fully recognized by the Roman Catholic Church prior to Vatican II. Many Catholics continue to recognize him today.

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Engraving after Sebald Beham (original was ca. 1535), printed by Johann Theodor de Bry, 1580-1600 from the British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?assetId=131259001&objectId=1519241&partId=1.
In the center of this engraving is a dog eating a drunkard's vomit, one of many substances that dogs eat that humans consider revolting, although it is likely that dogs evolved to eat such substances to help keep human homes clean. Artists like Beham utilized dogs and pigs to enhance their depictions of uncivilized, barbarous European peasants (Stewart, 28-29). The overall image displays a peasants' country fair or "kermis," in which men are behaving in ways deemed excessive and disgusting by German humanists.

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Hercules Capturing Cerberus from The Labors of Hercules

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Hercules Capturing Cerberus from The Labors of Hercules

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Sebald Beham engraving, 1545, from the Met Museum https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/415090
Cerebus, the guard dog of the underworld in Greek mythology, is a representation of the dog as potentially evil, capable of great violence. According to myth, Hercules, the half-man son of Zeus, was charged with subduing and capturing the dog, a task reserved only for a demigod or superhero. For all their love of dogs, Europeans recognized their tendencies, as Topsell put it, to be "fierce and cruell." The persistent myth of Cerebus attests to that.

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Frans Snyders (1579-1657), before 1636, from the Museo del Prado https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/a-larder/04cdacad-7c82-49cf-b1fe-94278bb32006?searchid=1eb795bd-3ff2-8ec4-cca1-16f6e49c0050
Flemish master Frans Snyders was the first artist to put dogs at the center of his domestic paintings. Often, he used them to moralize, as in The Fable of the Dog and Its Reflection, where a dog misses catching a steak, because he is too busy watching his reflection. Here, in their greed and gluttony, these dogs have wrought destruction on the kitchen. In the process, they look upon one another with resentment for their crimes.

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Illustration from an edition of Miguel de Cervantes's The Colloquy of the Dogs (first published 1613 in Exemplary Stories) that appears to be dated 1798. https://www.comillas.edu/en/biblioteca/exposiciones-virtuales/exposicion-cervantes-biblioteca/cervantes-y-los-jesuitas?jjj=1543796284908
In a novela narrated by Cipion and Berganza, two anthropomorphized talking dogs, Cervantes demonstrates that the contemporary tendency to humanize dogs dates back to the Early Modern period. Berganza is an abnormally intelligent dog, but he reveals an important element of Castilian Spanish cultural attitudes towards dogs. "There is an admission of just how clever, teachable, and responsive dogs are as herders, guardians, and performers" (Alvez, Animals and Early Modern Identity, 273).

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Albrecht Durer, 1514 ( copies of this engraving held in various museums), including the U.S. National Gallery of Art. https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/durer-melencolia.html
Experts have had trouble nailing down a definitive interpretation of this piece by Durer, but many suggest it is a self-portrait of sorts, representing the melancholy of the creative artist. Tools of various trades are scattered around the angel. Most importantly, she is accompanied by a dog, eyes downcast, suggesting feelings of empathy for the plight of his companion; and providing further evidence of the close relationships that humanists like Lipsius had with their dogs.