The pictures made by Indian artists for the British in India are often known as 'Company' paintings. This example is one of two pictures from a set made for a Calcutta resident, depicting his house, servants and pets. The distinguished Company artist Shaikh Muhammad Amir, who worked in the Karraya suburb of Calcutta, painted them. From about the 1780s British residents began to move out of the city centre to the pleasant new suburbs of Chowringhee and Garden Reach. Here local artists found plenty of work. Shaikh Muhammad Amir specialised in depicting the houses and domestic staff of British suburbanites. The painting shows the two dogs sitting in the compound of a house. The dog standing on the left is General, a Feathered Saluki. On the right is the bitch, Aiyar, a Smooth Saluki.