French bulldog portraits as 18th-century royalty

A small bulldog with a French court behind it

The French bulldog began as the toy bulldog of 19th-century England. Lacemakers from Nottingham took their small bulldogs with them when they moved to Normandy for work, and in France the dogs became the Bouledogue Français, a fixture of Montmartre in the 1890s, and a subject for Toulouse-Lautrec.

American breeders fixed the feature everyone knows now: the bat ear, broad at the base, rounded at the top and carried upright. With the square head and the short, wrinkled muzzle, it gives the breed one of the clearest silhouettes of any dog, which is exactly what a formal portrait wants.

The breed standard asks for a dog that is well behaved, adaptable and affectionate, active and playful without being boisterous, with an expression that is alert, curious and interested. That expression is the one a court painter would have wanted.

The 18th Century Royalty style

The style borrows from the French state portrait, the portrait d'apparat. Its model is Hyacinthe Rigaud's portrait of Louis XIV from 1701, which shows the king in his coronation robes under a canopy of silk, and which he liked so much that he kept it at Versailles. Rigaud painted Louis XV the same way in 1730.

Your Frenchie takes the king's place: an ermine-trimmed cloak of red velvet over the shoulders, a gold chain, a tasseled cushion and a dark, warm background lit from one side. The upright ears and the broad chest carry the cloak well, and the black mask or the brindle of the coat reads as rich as old oil paint.

The face stays your dog's own. The coat color, the markings and the expression come from your photo; only the cloak, the cushion and the room come from the period.

A gift for a Frenchie's people

French bulldogs are city dogs for many owners, with a phone full of photos and a wall with no art of them. A royal portrait turns one of those photos into a piece for the hall or the living room, and it suits a breed whose owners already treat it like royalty.

It works for a birthday, a new puppy, or a dog that has died: the painting keeps the face the family knows.