The exhibition focuses on the constant presence of the dog in the world of Western figurative art, often as an accessory motif of the great history painting, but also as a real genre cultivated by "animalist" painters or by complete artists who have tried their hand at various sectors, both with an autonomous character and linked to the genre of the portrait. After the human figure, the dog, the "friend of man" par excellence, is the animal that has increasingly been represented by artists, betraying an emotional bond and an elective affinity that goes beyond the aspects of formal decoration.