A Maltese atelier · Pet portraits, refined

Pet portraits, painted in Malta.

Olea & Hound is a fine-art pet portrait atelier based on the edge of an olive grove, near Mdina. Six considered styles, painted from your phone photo, delivered to your inbox in thirty seconds. Numbered Certificate of Authenticity, signed by the atelier. From €39.

Upload a photograph → See the six styles

A Maltese pet portrait painted in the Royal style - composed in the Olea & Hound atelier near Mdina

Why Malta

An atelier in a 200-year-old farmhouse, near Mdina.

Pet portrait services have, in the last decade, largely moved to two extremes - cheap canvas printed and shipped from warehouses in Asia, or hand-painted commissions that take six weeks and cost €400 upwards. We sit between the two: a European atelier on the edge of an olive grove, composing fine-art portraits with care, delivering them as archival-grade digital files in thirty seconds.

Being based in Malta matters for three reasons. The light - the north-facing window in a Maltese limestone farmhouse is the same kind of light court painters worked in for three centuries. The proximity to the European fine-art tradition. And the small-island operating discipline that means every portrait is reviewed by a human before it lands in your inbox - not by a faceless QA team in another time zone.

We deliver to Malta, the UK, the rest of the EU, and worldwide. The file is digital - you print it yourself at any local print shop, frame it the way that suits your home, and the portrait lives on the wall for as long as you keep it.

A framed pet portrait displayed on a bookshelf - composed in Malta, printed by the owner locally

How it works

Three steps, thirty seconds.

Upload one photograph

Any phone photo of your dog or cat. Bright, eye-visible, recent. No studio shoot needed.

See six styles, free

Royal, Oil Painting, Watercolour, Storybook, Minimal Line, Memorial. All six in your browser before any money changes hands.

Receive the archival file

4,096×4,096 PNG in your inbox, plus six device wallpapers and a numbered Certificate of Authenticity, signed by the atelier.

A printed pet portrait on the fridge - taken to a local Maltese print shop

Printing locally

Where to print a portrait in Malta.

The file is yours to print at any size, at any local print shop. For A3 and A4, a current inkjet printer at home does a beautiful job on matte or satin paper - the file is high enough resolution. For A2 or larger, walk into any of the established Maltese print shops with the file on a USB stick or sent ahead by email:

Valletta & Sliema - any fine-art print specialist; ask for a giclée print on Hahnemühle archival paper. €15-€35 for an A2 print.
Birkirkara & the central area - any reprographics / large-format print shop will handle A2 photo prints on quality paper.
Online - if you'd rather have it delivered framed, photobox.com.mt or any EU-shipping framing service.

We keep the digital-file route because it gives you full control over size, paper, and framing - and because shipping a framed canvas from a warehouse to a Maltese address often takes 3-4 weeks and adds significant cost. A digital file is in your inbox in thirty seconds and printed locally the same week.

Maltese pets

Pharaoh hounds, Maltese terriers, street cats.

The Pharaoh Hound - Kelb tal-Fenek, Malta's national dog - looks magnificent in our Royal Portrait style. The ears that gave the breed its name, the slender amber coat, the alert composure - the style flatters all of it. The Maltese terrier, similarly, sits beautifully in Soft Watercolour. And the Maltese street cats, the half-feral tabbies that adopted you, are exactly the kind of subject the Oil Painting style was built for - all character, all personality, no costume.

A Pharaoh Hound in the Royal Portrait style - Malta's national dog, painted in the Olea & Hound atelier

About the atelier

What people in Malta actually ask.

Where exactly are you based?+

Our atelier is a converted 200-year-old farmhouse near Mdina, with an olive grove out the back. We don't run a walk-in studio - everything is done online, with the photograph uploaded from your phone and the finished file delivered to your inbox in thirty seconds. The Malta-base shows up in the brand voice, the attention to fine-art convention, and the human review on every portrait before it ships.

How much is a pet portrait in Malta?+

From €39 for one style, €69 for three styles, €99 for all six styles. The price is the same whether you're in Malta or elsewhere in the EU or worldwide - we don't add shipping because we deliver the digital file, not a printed canvas. You print it locally at any size you like.

Is this hand-painted by an artist in Malta?+

No. We use a current-generation image-rendering pipeline to compose six fine-art interpretations of your pet, then a human in the atelier reviews each one before it reaches you. The brand voice, the composition rules, the style direction, the curation - all human. The actual rendering is AI. We say this plainly. Anyone telling you a custom pet portrait under €200 was "hand-painted by an artist" in 3-day turnaround is not being straight with you.

Can I get the portrait printed and framed without leaving my home?+

Yes - email the file to any Maltese print shop and they'll print + frame to your spec, with delivery or pick-up. We keep this part decoupled deliberately: it means you control the size, paper, and frame, and you avoid the shipping costs and 2-4 week wait that a fully-printed-and-shipped service involves.

Do you deliver outside Malta?+

The file is digital - it lands in any inbox, anywhere in the world, in thirty seconds. We have customers in the UK, EU, US, Australia and the Gulf. The Malta-based atelier is the studio; the delivery is universal.

What if it doesn't look like my pet?+

A five-minute full refund, no questions. We don't bill you until you've seen all six portraits and chosen the one you want, and even then the refund window is open until you've had a real look at the file. If it isn't them, we don't charge.

Begin your portrait

Six styles. Thirty seconds.
Painted in Malta.

Upload a photograph →

Registered in Malta · Co. C 102212 · VAT MT29182301