Two Studies of George Dyer with Dog, 1968 Oil on canvas 777⁄8 × 581⁄8 in. (197.8 × 147.7 cm) "The dog, which is represented only as a shadow, is one of Bacon’s strangest conceits. It begins with humanoid legs, but the head is unlike that of any canine. Presumably Bacon intended a ‘dog’ that was analogous to Winston Churchill’s ‘black dog’, the metaphor Churchill adopted (following Samuel Johnson) for his periods of depression." Martin Harrison, Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné (London: The Estate of Francis Bacon Publishing, 2016) p. 874