Landseer was one of the most famous and successful painters of his century, specialising in the depiction of animals usually in a Scottish setting. This early work - the artist was only nineteen years old - was painted before Landseer had visited Scotland, so he must have imagined the loch and mountain scenery. Like the pictures by Brooks and Duncan (cat.nos. 74 and 77), the painting proposes more than the portraits of two (in Scottish dialect 'twa') dogs, a Newfoundland and a collie: it refers to Robert Burns' poem 'The Twa Dogs: a Tale', the heroes of which were Caesar and Luath. In the poem, the dogs converse, not in a complimentary way, on the subject of men and their manners. In this sense, the painting is the earliest example of Landseer's anthropomorphic impulse, endowing animals with the emotions and intellects of humans. This work also displays the artist's dazzling technique; an infant prodigy with pencil and brush, Landseer was compared later by critics to the finest old masters, in this case to the great Flemish animal painter Jan Fyt.