This volume, illustrated throughout with images from the National Portrait Gallery, charts the frequent presence in even the grandest portraits of the sitter's silent companion - cats, dogs and other pets as recorded with their masters and mistresses in over 450 years of paintings, sketches, drawings and photographs. From the Elizabethan Sir Henry Unton to the children of Charles I, from the little terrier that records Lady Caroline Lamb's first extra-marital affair to Queen Victoria's favourite dogs, this book charts the English interest with the domestic pet and the ways in which their likenesses and life-stories have been captured.