Beagle Wall Art

Beagle Wall Art

The honest caveat first: a beagle is a mid-sized tricolour dog with a fairly generic outline, and a large proportion of beagle art does not actually look like a beagle. Change the ear length slightly and you have a foxhound; soften the muzzle and you have a harrier or a mongrel. If the point of buying is that it looks like your dog, check three things in the image before anything else — the long low-set ears, the white tail tip, and the proportion of the muzzle to the skull. Plenty of prints sold as beagles fail at least one.

Colour is the other thing worth knowing in advance. The classic black, tan and white saddle pattern is busy: three values fighting inside one small shape. That works fine on a plain wall and badly on a patterned one, and it means beagle prints rarely sit quietly. If you want quiet, look for line drawings, single-colour silhouettes or watercolour treatments that let the pattern go soft.

Treatments in this category split roughly three ways. Realistic portraits, which live or die on the eyes. Loose watercolour, which suits hallways and kitchens and forgives a lot. And the anthropomorphic strand — the dog in a suit, the dog in a hat — which is a different purchase entirely and behaves like a novelty piece, best somewhere people encounter it briefly rather than sit with it.

Placement is easier than most subjects. Dog portraits work at eye level or slightly below, which is unusual, because the dog reading up at you from a low hang has more charm than one looking down. Boot rooms, kitchens, landings and stairwells all suit them; formal sitting rooms less so unless the treatment is restrained.

A last practical note on head direction. A beagle looking left hung on the right side of a room will always seem to be facing out of the space. Note which way the head turns and hang it so the dog looks into the room rather than at the nearest wall — it is a small thing that people feel without being able to name.