Pablo Picasso was renowned for having numerous muses — mostly women with whom he also had harmful relationships. But there's at least one of these muses who was freed from toxic romantic entanglement: a cute dachshund called Lump.

Before becoming his most famous canine model, Lump originally belonged to US photojournalist David Douglas Duncan.

The dog and the photographer visited Picasso at his villa in Cannes in 1967. According to Duncan, upon their first encounter, Lump jumped right onto Picasso's lap. He apparently "decided" to stay with the painter, and they lived together for six years.

The story does not reveal how Lump's decision was communicated, but that immediate special bound was immortalized through art: Picasso painted the dachshund's portrait directly onto a ceramic dinner plate that day, and Duncan did a series of photos documenting them together while the work was created.

The plate and the photos are on show at the new exhibition " The Dachshund.…