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Photograph of the original painting of Nipper looking into an Edison Bell cylinder phonograph.

Francis Barraud's modified version painting of Nipper listening to a disc gramophone

Nipper was a dog that served as the model for a painting entitled His Master's Voice, which later became identified with a series of audio recording brands, including RCA Records.

Nipper was born in 1884 in Bristol, England, and died in September 1895^[1]. He was a mixed-breed dog, part Bull Terrier with a trace of Fox Terrier. It has also been claimed in various sources that he was Jack Russell Terrier^[2], a Fox Terrier, a Rat Terrier, or an American Pit Bull Terrier (unlikely, since he was not an American dog). He was named Nipper because he tried to bite visitors in the leg.

After Nipper's death in 1895, his owner Francis Barraud painted a picture of Nipper listening intently to a wind-up Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph, because cylinder phonographs were capable of making home recordings. It was three years after Nipper's death that he painted this picture of Nipper listening to the home recording of Francis's deceased brother Mark Barraud (died 1887), to whom the dog had previously belonged. Both Nipper and the phonograph were shown sitting on what appears to be the lid of a coffin in the original work. In 1899 the painting was bought by the Gramophone Company, which commissioned the artist to paint out the Edison-Bell machine and replace it with one of theirs. Technically, this modification rendered the painting meaningless, since gramophones were not capable of recording, but the public seemed not to have noticed this error, as this modified form became the successful trademark of Victor and HMV records, HMV music stores, and RCA. (See HMV for a complete history of the brands based on Nipper.)

Nipper was buried in Kingston upon Thames, London, in a small park surrounded by Magnolia trees. As time progressed the area was built upon, a branch of Lloyds TSB now occupies the site. On the wall of the bank, just inside the entrance, a brass plaque is displayed on the wall commemorating the famous terrier which lies beneath the building.

Nipper lives on through the brand names; he even appeared in ads on television with his "son", a puppy named Chipper who was added to the RCA family in 1991^[3].Real dogs continue to play the roles of Nipper and Chipper but Chipper has to be replaced much more frequently since his character is in fact a puppy. Fans of the dog advertising icon created a popular website called Nipperscape which went offline in 2005 but is preserved on a mirror site - [1]

Christina Aguilera used this image on the CD art for her album Back to Basics.

• RCA Global Communications, New York City
• The Nipper Saga
• Nipper web pages
• Nipper photography download