In this self-portrait Landseer sits at a drawing board, a porte-crayon in one hand and two dogs behind him scrutinising his drawing. Although Landseer reportedly hated being watched while he worked, he liked having dogs in his studio. The two dogs depicted here are probably his own collie, Lassie (on the right), and a retriever called Myrtle, owned by Mr Wells, one of his patrons. In positioning the two dogs as connoisseurs of his work, Landseer implies that the untutored judge is better than the tutored.

A photograph of the artist taken at around the same date (RCIN 2911991) suggests that Landseer used a mirror to make this self-portrait, as certain features appear in reverse. Interestingly, he seems to have been selective in the areas he corrects: his painting hand and the buttons on his jacket have been reversed, while his parting and the direction of both his crossed legs and his drawing board correspond to his mirror image. Perhaps the artist only corrected those aspects of his appearance that might arouse suspicion were they to appear back to front and he may even have used a photograph as a visual aid in the final stages of the painting process.^[1]