Google Arts & Culture app matches your pet with museum artwork

A fun take on a viral throwback feature.

What you need to know

• The Google Arts & Culture app adds a new Pet Portrait feature.
• The new feature matches an image of your pet with museum art.
• It’s similar to the Art Selfie feature that went viral in 2018.

Google recently updated its Arts & Culture feature with a new feature specifically for animal lovers dubbed Pet Portraits, which takes an image of your pen and matches it to artwork.

The latest update, which started rolling out on some of the best Android phones this week, opens directly to the new Pet Portraits mode when selecting the camera icon. When selecting “Take a photo,” you can either capture a picture of your pet with the viewfinder or upload one using your phone’s gallery.

The feature will analyze the image and compare it and compare it to various museum artworks, listed based on the percentage of likeness. From there, you can either retake, save, or share the image. You can even enter a slideshow to display all the different artworks or select an artwork to view the full image as well as the artist and museum it’s featured in.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Pet Portraits harkens back to Google’s Art Selfie feature that went viral for a moment a few years back. That feature is still present and is accessible from the new carousel layout in the Arts & Culture camera that replaces the old list view.

Google ensures to inform the user before use that images are only processed on-device and not sent through to servers. Additionally, images are only seen by you unless you choose to share them.

The feature appears to be part of app version 9.0.27, which may not have rolled out on all devices just yet (some of our devices like the LG Wing have it, while others don’t).

For the artsy and cultured

Google Arts & Culture

Free at Play Store

An art exhibit in the palm of your hand

Google Arts & Culture is a fun app that lets you take a visual trip through history and take a close look at some of the most famous paintings. There are also fun features like Art Selfie and Pet Portrait that compare your images to renowned artwork.