30/08/2026
There must not have been any dog groomers back then!
A. Randall was a jeweler. He had some of the most valuable gems of his time in his hands.
But when he decided to have a portrait made, sometime between 1870 and 1875, he didn’t choose a precious stone or a piece from his collection. He chose his dog. He sat him in front of the camera in what is now considered one of the earliest photographic sessions dedicated to a pet in history. The animal, shy in front of the unfamiliar apparatus, hid its eyes in several shots, as if it didn’t quite understand why its human was treating it like a treasure.
More than 150 years later, those plates survived—and with them, proof of something that needs no date: long before selfies with dog filters, there were already people willing to preserve their four-legged companion’s face forever.
