In this early work by celebrated portrait painter Gilbert Stuart, the spaniels of William Hunter (c. 1729–77), a prosperous Scottish-born doctor in Newport, rest beneath a Newport-made mahogany tea table. The table’s serpentine front, cabriole legs, and ball-and-claw feet are visible. The canvas offers a rare view of 18th-century Newport furniture in a period interior. At the time of the painting, Dr. Hunter operated a successful medical practice and apothecary on Thames Street. There he enslaved two men named Quash and Mark. Dr. Hunter settled in Newport in 1752. When he married Deborah Malbone, the daughter of a wealthy Newport merchant, in 1761, her kin and allies became his clientele. The very fine table in the painting attests to Hunter’s prosperity. The dogs, which appear to be King Charles spaniels, were further status symbols. In England, ownership of that breed was restricted to the aristocracy. Wealthy colonists imported spaniels from England to be associated with the English court. Completed when Stuart was 14 or 15 years old, the canvas was likely Stuart’s first commission. Stuart was born in Saunderstown, RI, and received formal training under Scottish portraitist, Cosmo Alexander (1724–72), who worked in Newport in 1769–70. Stuart reportedly learned to sketch faces as a boy by watching an enslaved cooper named Neptune Thurston draw faces with chalks and charcoals on hogshead barrels by the wharves in Newport. The expressive faces of Dr. Hunter’s spaniels may show the influence of Thurston. At the beginning of the Revolution, Stuart sailed to London. He lived abroad for over 20 years. He married Charlotte Coates in 1786. In 1793, Stuart and his family returned to the United States, and Stuart gathered a roster of prominent clients, including George and Martha Washington, John and Abigail Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.