The Lion Dog of Malta (1840)
by
Sir Edwin Landseer
This painting is sometimes identified, going back to the later 19th Century, as depicting a Maltese dog with its paw resting on the muzzle of a Newfoundland. (See, for example, this entry here at The Cultured Newf.) The noted English art critic Frederick G. Stephens, in his book Sir Edwin Landseer (1880), also identifies the dog as a "huge Newfoundland dog, on whose nose the smaller beast has placed a puny, long-fringed paw. The latter looks with glittering ferret's eyes through its overhanging mane. The enormous head of the larger dog is bigger than the whole carcase of the little one; and his eyes have the trick of a deep, earnest expression, which none caught so well as Landseer." (81)
To me that dog looks more like a St. Bernard, or perhaps a Saint/Newf mix, than a Newf, though of course at this time there was more variability in the breed. At any rate, here it is, for the sake of the historical record.
This painting was commissioned by Queen Victoria for her mother's birthday; the Maltese depicted here, named Quiz, was one of the dogs belonging to Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent. This painting remains in the Royal Collection.