Quiz, a Maltese dog, sits on a table nestling against the head of a St Bernard. Next to him are a pen, a dish with sealing-wax, pencils, other items of an artist’s equipment, and a mouse nibbling a piece of cheese. Queen Victoria noted in her Journal that Landseer had ‘put Quiz with its paw on the nose of a very large dog, and a little mouse in front to show the size’. Quiz was described as the last of his tribe and was given by Queen Adelaide to the Duchess of Kent in 1839. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1840.