Portrait of the Dog Phoebus

Willem Witsen made this watercolour in 1884, his last year as a student at the Amsterdam Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. The young artist was then already a superb watercolourist. He painstakingly drew the fine hairs in front of the dog’s eyes, cleverly taking advantage of the white of the paper. The sitter is a little dog, and an old one judging from its right eye, which shows signs of catar…