Nipper the dog, mascot of His Master’s Voice

His Master’s Voice (HMV) was a record label created in 1901 in England by the Gramophone Company. Its logo – a fox terrier listening with a cocked head to a gramophone – has become one of the entertainment industry’s most iconic brands, evident by this plaster statue created in 1990, some 89 years after the label started. 

The image started out as a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, who was amused by the attentive but confused way that his brother’s dog Nipper listened to the newfangled phonograph. He called the painting His Master’s Voice. The enterprising Barraud shopped the image around – including to competitor Edison Bell – before landing a deal with the Gramophone Company, which bought the image for £50 and paid £50 to buy out the copyright. American affiliate RCA Victor also adopted the trademark. 

What about Nipper, the famous foxy? Well, he was born in Bristol in 1884 and lived with different members of the Barraud family over the course of his life. He died in 1895 in Kingston upon Thames, where in March 2010, a small road near the dog’s final resting place was officially named Nipper Alley.