Maud Alice Earl was born in London’s West End in 1864. She was the only daughter of the successful sporting artist George Earl and his first wife, Alice Beaumont Rawlins. The Earls came from a long line of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire sporting families and produced a number of sporting painters, including her uncle, Thomas Earl, and Maud’s half-brother Percy. Maud’s father was an avid sportsman and despite her childhood aspiration for a musical career, her father steered her in the direction of art. Working first in only black and white, she drew animals over and over again. Her father had her study the anatomy of animal subjects, drawing dog, horse and human skeletons to improve her skill. She later said that her father’s instruction had given her ability that set her apart from other dog painters. After her father’s tutelage, Maud studied at the Royal Female School of Art in Queen Square (established in 1842, that establishment was transferred to the control of the London County Council and incorporated into the Central School in 1908), where she quickly developed her natural talent for capturing the true character of her canine subjects. Earl exhibited around twelve works at the Royal Academy, commencing with a stag painting Early Morning in 1884. She also exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. Her first solo exhibition in 1897 at the Graves Gallery, Pall Mall, London, included a portrait of two famous Irish Setters, and as her reputation grew, she executed commissioned portraits of dogs belonging to noted royal dog-lovers such as Queen Victoria (who at one point, had as had as many as 70 dogs at her kennels at Windsor), King Edward VII, Queen Alexandra and Kathleen, Duchess of Newcastle, who was an important breeder and judge of Wire Fox Terriers as well as Borzoi. Earl painted Edward VII’s fox terrier ‘Caesar’ on two occasions, the second one depicting the dog mourning his master’s death in 1910. In an interview published in the November 1898 issue of The Young Woman, Earl stated:  ‘You can’t paint dogs unless you understand them; I don’t mean merely from the fancier’s point of view. You must know whether they are happy and comfortable, and if not, why not. You must know how to quiet them when they become excited and nervous. You must know all their little likes and dislikes, and this knowledge comes from long experience.’ She was also asked if she painted almost every breed in existence. She replied, ‘Very nearly. I have never painted a Mexican hairless dog, or an African dog.’ Never using photographs and painting only what she saw, her works were extremely popular with a public for whom images of the dog were a significant reflection of their affection for the animal. Purebred dogs in late 19th century England were extraordinarily popular, as new breeds were imported and established. Maud Earl further reinforced their importance by completing their portraits in oils. In 1897 Earl had an exhibition in which she showed paintings of 48 different breeds of dog. Major breeders engaged her to depict their dogs, and her works were included in a number of books, including The Pointer and his Predecessors by William Arkwright, Memories by John Galsworthy, and The Power of the Dog by A. Croxton Smith.  Twenty four of her dog prints appeared in British Hounds and Gun-Dogs (1902). Despite her great success in England, Earl felt that the world she knew had been destroyed by the Great War and she migrated to America in 1916. She established her studio in New York City and branched out into painting exotic birds as well as dogs, and experimented with different styles, including one she called ‘Orientalist’, much influenced by Asian art.  In addition to the British Kennel Club, her works are in the collection of the American Kennel Club and museum collections, and remain popular subjects for poster reproductions. Earl’s oeuvre may be loosely divided into four styles: the naturalistic, richly painted portraits of dogs from around 1880 to 1900; a looser, more sketchy style from about 1900 to 1915; what she referred to as her oriental style from about 1916 into the 1920s after she emigrated to America; and her late, rather stylised portraits of dogs painted during the 1930s. It was during her early years in America that she painted her little known but elegant paintings of birds, which she considered some of her best work. Earl died in New York in 1943 and was buried there in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Her depiction of ‘Dimboola’ may be seen above.