One spring morning in 1957, veteran photojournalist David Douglas Duncan paid a visit to his friend and frequent photographic subject Pablo Picasso, at the artistÕs villa near Cannes. As copilot alongside Duncan in his Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL was the photographerÕs dachshund, Lump. Photographer and dog were close companions, but DuncanÕs nomadic lifestyle and his other dog Ñ a giant Afghan hound who had tormented the autocratic and temperamental Lump Ñ made home life in Rome difficult. When they arrived at PicassoÕs Villa La Californie that historic day, Lump decided that he had found paradise on earth, and that he would move in with Picasso, whether the artist wanted him to or not.

This is the background for an utterly original book that offers an uncommonly sensitive portrait of Picasso. Lump was immortalized in a Picasso portrait painted on a plate the day they met, but that was just the beginning. In a suite of 45 paintings reinterpreting Vel‡squezÕs masterpiece Las Meninas, Picasso replaced the impassive hound in the foreground with jaunty renderings of Lump. Fifteen of those paintings are reproduced here in full color, juxtaposed with DuncanÕs dramatic and intimate black-and-white photographs of Picasso and Lump, bringing full circle the odyssey of a fortunate dachshund who found his way from reluctant road warrior to furry and elongated icon of modern art.