A pair of similar hounds is illustrated by Michel Beurdeley and Guy Raindre, Qing Porcelain, London, 1987, p. 212, no. 290, where the authors note that naturalistically portrayed hounds like this are familiar from a series of gouaches painted by Giuseppe Castiglione in 1765. Other similar hounds are illustrated by David Howard and John Ayers, China for the West, vol. II, London, 1978, pp. 596 and 597, nos. 620 and 621, where it is noted that models of this type "are not far removed from a common type of bony-ribbed, long-muzzled hound native to China and often represented in art from T'ang times onwards"