Monkeys and Dogs Playing
- Artist: Francis Barlow
- Date: 1661
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1055 x 1320 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the "Monkeys and Dogs Playing" by Francis Barlow, painted in 1661. The artist was the first British‑born painter to focus on animals, and back then such pictures were largely decorative, often hanging over doors in country houses. Here we see two spaniels – likely portraits of a patron’s prized dogs – and a handful of capuchin monkeys from South America. Those exotic pets were a sign of wealth and cosmopolitan taste among the English elite. Barlow’s oil on canvas shows careful brushwork: smooth strokes for the animals, broader ones for the background. The painting was cleaned and restored by Rica Jones in 1997 before being added to the collection in 1989 with help from the Friends of the Tate. Though it was produced for a private patron, it now invites us to imagine the lively scene behind a grand door in a 17th‑century English home.
See it in person
Monkeys and Dogs Playing is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
