Spanish sailors are believed to have introduced bichons frises to the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands; there, in the 14th century, Italian sailors found them and returned them to Europe. The breed enjoyed four centuries of favour from royalty and the new middle class, especially in France in the late 16th century, when King Henry III carried the little dogs in a basket attached to ribbons around his neck. They appeared in paintings by Francisco de Goya (Goya, Francisco de), but by late in the 19th century aristocratic fancies had turned to other dogs, and bichons frises performed in the circus and with organ-grinders or were pets belonging to commoners. French breeders began breeding them after World War I; in the 1930s, renamed “bichons frises,” they became recognized as show dogs.