The dog, painted presumably by a local Lincolnshire artist, belonged to Henry Stone of the Manor House, Skellingthorpe, Lincolnshire. According to local legend, the dog prevented Stone from being struck by lightning, tugging at his master’s coat when he was aiming to shoot a pheasant in a tree, which was about to be rent in half by a lightning bolt. Stone, who died aged sixty-two on 26 June 1693, had no heirs, and endowed his estate to Christ’s Hospital. He left the portrait of his dog to his friends and neighbours, the Hussey family at Doddington. To the right and above the dog a pheasant perches upon the branch of a blasted tree, a detail that presumably alludes to Stone’s fortunate escape and his dog’s sagacious intervention. For further information see Rod Collins’s website on Doddington.¹