There has not been an example of this rare form on the market in nearly 30 years, and the present model is the only decorated example known. Only two other single pugs of this type are known; the first example was sold by Christie's, London, 24 October 1966, lot 2 and was acquired by Winifred Williams on behalf of the Victoria and Albert Museum, see accession no. C.101-1966. The second is most probably the example from the collection of Mr. Lionel Geneen, mentioned in J.V.G. Mallet's article in Apollo, 'Rococo English Porcelain: a study in style', 1969, Vol 90, no. 90, pp. 100-111, and later offered anonymously at Sotheby's, London, 19 November 1991, lot 208. In addition to these two single examples, there is a pair that was sold Christie's, New York, 30-31 October 1996, lot 7.

A clear link has been established between William Hogarth and a circle of artists which was centered around the St. Martin's Lane Academy and the Old Slaughter's Coffee House. Louis-François Roubiliac (1702-1762), friend of Hogarth and a member of this artistic group, immortalised Trump, Hogarth's favourite pug and muse, in a now-lost terracotta model. Trump famously appears in Hogarth's self-portrait of 1745, Painter and His Pug (now in the Tate Britain, London) and again in the fifth scene of The Rakes Progress. Tessa Murdoch & Sandra Robinson discuss Roubiliac's terracotta models in 'Roubiliac & Sprimont - a friendship revisited', The Burlington Magazine, June 2023, pp.1-16: 'of the few models attributed to Roubiliac that were used as sources for Chelsea porcelain, the most celebrated is that of the artist William Hogarth’s pug dog Trump. The evidence that this was modelled by Roubiliac includes Samuel Ireland’s Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth (1799), in which an engraving of the terracotta of the pug appears beneath that of Roubiliac’s terracotta bust of the artist'. Elizabeth Adams suggests that Roubiliac allowed the sale of plaster casts of his model of Trump¹ and is it likely that one of these was used at the Chelsea porcelain factory for reproduction in porcelain, see Chelsea Porcelain, London, 2001, p. 35. Fellow émigré, Nicholas Sprimont, proprietor of the Chelsea porcelain factory, was also godfather to Roubiliac's daughter, Sophie.

Roubiliac's terracotta of Trump was listed in the effects of Hogarth's widow in 1789 and again in the sale of the collector Watson Taylor at Erlestoke Park, Wiltshire in July 1832, lot 171, when it was described as ‘Hogarth’s favorite Dog, Trump, Modelled in Terracotta by one who had often caressed him, his Master’s friend, the celebrated Roubiliac’. Thereafter its whereabout are unknown.

J.V.G Mallet has suggested that Sprimont modelled a number of animals at the Chelsea factory and that he may be responsible for adapting Louis-François Roubiliac’s model of Hogarth’s dog Trump for reproduction in porcelain. For a comprehensive discussion see J.V.G. Mallet, 'Hogarth's pug in porcelain', Victoria and Albert Museum Bulletin, April 1967, Vol. III, no. 2, pp. 45 - 54.

1. Plaster casts of Roubiliac's model of Trump were in circulation in the later part of the 18th century. In 1774, Richard Parker invoiced Wedgwood for a plaster cast of a 'Pug Dog' at ten shillings and sixpence. Parker may have acquired the mould at the sale of the contents of Roubiliac's studio after his death in 1762 or possibly from Wilton, who had studied with Roubiliac in Rome, see Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, Vol. I, London, 1989, p. 467 and see also fig. 670A for the Chelsea model of Trump in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.