When today’s Tibetan Spaniel was encountered by European travelers for the first time in the late 1800s,  the dogs reminded them of toy spaniels, or, as those dogs used to be called, “spaniel gentle.” That lead to its first European nickname, the “King Charles of the East.”

The Tibetan Spaniel first arrived in England in the late 19th century, and when Maud Earle painted a portrait of the breed in 1898, , it was with three color variants

Tibetan Spaniels by Maud Earl