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[1] 2nd century BCE ?, Two Greyhounds Playing, Roman sculpture, Sala di Animali, Pio Clementine Museum, Vatican, Rome. An almost identical statue is in the British Museum.

[2] 13th C., Hunt Scene, wall painting, Hailes Church, Hailes, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK Possibly painted as a warning to breakers of the Sabbath.

1063 - 1350, Greyhound on Pisa Cathedral, photo by John Lange

[3] c. 1335-40, Buonamico Buffalmacco, The Triumph of Death, fresco, Camposanto, Pisa Cathedral

[7] c. 1445, Antonio Vivarini, Adoration of the Kings, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Viewers of the time would understand that the Greyhound to the lower right symbolizes several things: a dog was a symbol of fidelity to the new-born Jesus; white is a symbol of purity; while a Greyhound indicates the nobility of the visitors.

[8] c. 1455, Roger van der Weyden, Adoration of the Magi, Three Kings Altarpiece, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

c. 1455, Roger van der Weyden, Three Kings Altar, detail

1470-5, Biagio d'Antonio, Triumph of Camillus, National Gallery of Art, gallery 7. The sharp-eyed can find five Greyhounds, three white, one black, and one tan or possibly brindle.

1470-5, Biagio d'Antonio, Triumph of Camillus, detail Here the Greyhounds signify the aristocratic nature of the participants in the march.

c. 1470-75, Benvenuto de Giovanni, Adoration of the Magi, National Gallery of Art, gallery 8

c. 1470-5, Benvenuto de Giovanni, Adoration of the Magi, detail. Again, a white Greyhound accompanies the Magi.

4th qtr 15th C., Master of the Legend of St. Ursula, Saint and his Father Departing on a Pilgrimage to Rome, Louvre

before 1489, Hans Memling, Martydom in Cologne, part of the St. Ursula Shrine, Memlingmuseum, Bruges

1494, Biagio d'Antonio, The Story of Joseph, Metropolitan Museum

1500-1, Albrecht Dürer, The Vision of St. Eustace, a heliographic reproduction of an engraving, collection of the author. The Greyhound looking upward was copied in a number of paintings. It is the largest of Dürer's engravings, while its Greyhounds were cited “as proof of the parity of painting and sculpture.”

1502, Pinturicchio, Enea Silvia Piccolomini Leaves for the Council at Basle, Siena Cathedral The storm in the upper left is the first such weather in Western art. The Greyhound, unlike some today in similar circumstances, remains unperturbed.

1502, Pinturicchio, Enea Silvia Piccolomini, detail

1502-3, Raphael, Adoration of the Magi, in predella of The Coronation of the Virgin, Pinacoteca, Vatican. Note that the Greyhound is black, whereas the Greyhounds are white in most paintings of the Magi.

1502-3, Raphael, Adoration of the Magi, detail

c. 1515, Joos van Cleve, Adoration of the Magi, Capodimonte Museum, Naples

1518-9, Baldassare Peruzzi, Diana, Sala delle Prospettive, Palazzo Farnesina, Rome Diana was the Roman goddess of the hunt, here as often portrayed holding her bow and accompanied by her Greyhound.

[14] before 1547, Coat of Arms of Lady Margaret Beaufort, carving over door, chapel of King's College, Cambridge, UK Lady Margaret was the mother of King Henry VII, who was responsible for much of the work of the chapel.

1524-31, School of Raphael, Adoration of the Shepherds, tapestry made in Brussels, Gallery of Tapestries, Vatican Museums, Rome Although there are many white Greyhounds in Paintings of the Adoration of the Magi, this is one the few that shows a Greyhound in an Adoration of the Shepherds. Since a Greyhound would have been useless as a herding dog, it is clear that its role here is to point out the nobility of Jesus.

1524-31, School of Raphael, Adoration of the Shepherds, detail. Although most shepherds are not aristocrats like the Magi, and the humbly dressed men here are no exception, nevertheless they are worshipers of the new-born King and therefore are shown with an aristocratic Greyhound.

[12] c. 1525, Dosso Dossi, Circe and Her Lovers (in a Landscape), National Gallery of Art, gallery 47 In Greek mythology, Circe was a temptress who would lure sailors to her island, whereupon she would transform them into animals.

1529, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Stag Hunt of Elector Frederick the Wise, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna Cranach was the court painter to the Elector of Saxony; the painting commemorates a hunt that had taken place 30 years before.

[26] 1530, Northern France or Flanders, The Elephant Chase, tapestry, Louvre Here in a woodland of northern Europe, as indicated by the church and the species of trees, the nobleman on the white horse has just killed an elephant. Given that the Greyhounds are leashed, it seems unlikely that they were used to chase down the elephant.

[13] 1531-3, design by Bernard van Orley, The Hunt of Maximilien, June, Flemish tapestry, Louvre Greyhounds may also be seen in the tapestries for February, April, July, and November.

1562, Jan Massys, David and Bathsheba, Louvre Here the white Greyhound hardly indicates purity but rather the royal status of King David.

1562, Paolo Veronese, The Wedding at Cana, Louvre This enormous painting, over 22 feet tall and 32 feet wide, was commissioned for the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. It was stolen by Napoleon in 1797 and taken to Paris where it hangs today. Although the Greyhound has a feathered tail, note the resemblance to the undoubted Greyhound in Veronese's Boy with Greyhound, painted in the 1570s.

1565, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

[4] 1570s, Paolo Veronese, Boy with a Greyhound, Metropolitan Museum Veronese was known as a painter who loved dogs; there are at least 33 paintings by him that contain Greyhounds, more than for any other painter.

1570s, Paolo Veronese, Boy with a Greyhound, detail

2nd half 16th C., School of Fontainbleau, Diana as Huntress, Louvre Aside from the title, we know this is Diana by her attributes, a bow and a Greyhound.

1614, Adriaen van de Venne, A “Jeu du Paume” Before a Country Palace, Getty Museum “Jeu du Paume” literally means Play of the Palm, or Bowling, as we can see.

[6] c. 1616, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Studies of Dogs, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna

[10] 1618, Hendrick van Balen and Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Wedding of Thétis and Pélée, Louvre

1620, Bartholomew van Bassen, Interior of an Imaginary Church with the Tomb of William the Silent, Budapest Museum of Fine Arts

[15] 1620, Peter Paul Rubens, Aletheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel, Alte Pinakothek, Munich The Countess is accompanied by her jester with his hand on the Greyhound, possibly his; her dwarf, with a falcon on his arm; and an unidentified man, possibly a courtier.