LATE 18TH CENTURY

A clear link has been established between William Hogarth and a tight 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), a member of this group, immortalised Hogarth's favorite pug, Trump, in a now lost terracotta model. This model and the well-known bust of Hogarth can be identified by the first plate found in Samuel Ireland's, Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, published 1 May 1799. The terracotta model of Trump was also listed in the effects of Hogarth's widow in 1789, and plaster casts of the dog were known to have circulated in the 18th century.

Richard Parker's invoice of 10 February 1774 records charges for a 'pug Dog' at ten shillings and sixpence and this was almost certainly a plaster cast after Roubiliac's terracotta of Trump, which was subsequently used to create the Wedgwood model in black basalt. It is possible that Parker purchased the mould in the sale of the contents of Roubiliac's studio after his death in 1762, or he may have acquired it from Wilton, who had studied with Roubiliac in Rome. In the Wedgwood & Bentley auction sale of 1781 'two pug dogs from Hogarth' and 'a pair of pug-dogs from a favourite dog of Hogarth's' were sold, see Robin Reilly, Wedgwood, Vol. I, London, 1989, p. 467. Reilly notes that '...pugs are amongst the rarest of all black basaltes pieces, and no marked examples are known', see Reilly op. cit., pp. 466-467 and fig. 670 for one of a pair of black basalt pugs, which are also unmarked but dated circa 1774