Cats in Art - part 2

This series features cats in art. Cats have been depicted in paintings and drawings by both unknown and famous artists throughout time. This series begins in 1400 BC through to 1997 AD.

For earlier works see part 1.

This is part 2 of 5-part series on Cats in Art:

1860-1900 Cat with Mouse
Chalkware (Paint on plaster of Paris) 8.9 x 10.5 x 5.1 cm
American Folk Art Museum, New York City

1860-1900 Cat
 Chalkware (Paint on plaster of Paris) 23.5 x 12.7 x 9.5 cm
American Folk Art Museum, New York City

1860-1900 Nodding Cat
Chalkware (Paint on plaster of Paris) 11.4 x 22.2 x 11.4 cm
American Folk Art Museum, New York City

1860-1900 Seated Cat
Chalkware (Paint on plaster of Paris) 40 x 21.6 cm
American Folk Art Museum, New York City

1861 A Cat Curled Up, Sleeping by Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
graphite on ivory-coloured paper 11.7 x 10.8 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Édouard Manet was the most important and influential artist to have heeded poet Charles Baudelaire’s call to artists to become painters of modern life. Manet had an upper-class upbringing, but also led a bohemian life, and was driven to scandalise the French Salon public with his disregard for academic conventions and his strikingly modern images of urban life. He has long been associated with the Impressionists; he was certainly an important influence on them and he learned much from them himself. However, in recent years critics have acknowledged that he also learned from the Realism and Naturalism of his French contemporaries, and even from 17th century Spanish painting. This twin interest in Old Masters and contemporary Realism gave him the crucial foundation for his revolutionary approach.

1861 Cat stalking a Butterfly by John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862)

John Woodhouse Audubon was the second son of the famed ornithologist and painter, John James Audubon. Like his father, he was primarily a painter of wildlife, but also did some portraits and genre scenes of the westward migration.

1862 Girl with Kittens in a Basket by Albert Anker (1831–1910)
Private Collection

Albert Anker is regarded as the “National Painter” of Switzerland. His meticulous paintings of Swiss rural life endeared him to the public and during his heyday, he was regarded as the most popular artist. His works captured the daily and social life of the rustics in the picturesque villages of Switzerland. While these captured the imagination of the public, his portraits charmed the critics. Indeed, his portraits and still-lifes are what cemented his enduring legacy. Unlike many of his contemporaries, his documentation of the social life of villagers was never judgmental. Rather he portrayed them as plain and unpretentious. Anker also worked on many still-lives, which are considered to be among his most important works.

Note: A series on the works of Albert Anker can be found in the index of this blog.

1862 Sleeping Cat with a Cat by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
oil on canvas
Private Collection

An innovative artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on February 25, 1841, in Limoges, France. He started out as an apprentice to a porcelain painter and studied drawing in his free time. After years as a struggling painter, Renoir helped launch an artistic movement called Impressionism in the 1870s. He eventually became one of the most highly regarded artists of his time. He died in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, in 1919.

Note: A series on the works of Pierre-Auguste Renoir can be found in the index of this blog.

1863 A White Cat Playing with a String by Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826-1869) 
woodblock print on paper 21.3 x 26.7 cm
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota

Utagawa Hiroshige, 1826 – 17 September 1869) was a Japanese designer  of ukiyo-e art. He inherited the name Hiroshige II following the death in 1858 of his master Hiroshige, whose daughter he married. In 1865 he moved from Edo to Yokohama after dissolving his marriage and began using the name Kisai Risshō. His work so resembles that of his master that scholars have often confused them.

1863 The Ball of Yarn by Joseph Caraud (1821-1905)
oil on panel 64.8 x 71.1 cm

Joseph Caraud was born at Cluny, Saone-et-Loire on January 5th 1821. He was a painter of genre scenes, studying under Abel de Pujol and Charles Louis Muller.

Caraud produced many delightful scenes of Victorian life, indoors, in gardens and set in landscapes. Like many others, he also catered for that almost limitless Victorian appetite for scenes in eighteenth century or Regency dress. Caraud preferred his interiors to landscapes, usually with figures, and liked his rooms lit only by limited sources of light. He favoured warm colours, enhanced by his clever use of glazes, and certainly possessed an unrivalled eye for detail. Caraud won several medals for his work including 3rd class in 1859, 2nd class in 1861 and 1863 and legion of honour in 1867, some of his pictures have been engraved.

1863 The Birdwatcher by William Holbrook Beard (1824-1900)
oil on canvas 40.6 x 33.6 cm

William Holbrook Beard was self-taught, although he studied with his brother, the artist James Henry Beard, in New York City, before embarking on a not too successful career as an itinerant portrait painter. He moved to Buffalo where he became one of the major artists of Buffalo’s first “golden age”. In the mid-1850s Beard traveled to Dusseldorf, Germany where he met and studied with his American peers. In the late 1860s Beard travelled to the American West, but was unimpressed with the western landscape that other artists had found inspiring. Beard then became renowned for his paintings depicting animals engaged in human activity. After Charles Darwin published his controversial “Origin of Species”, Beard composed a monkey painting satirizing the theory of evolution. Allegedly, Beard believed that animals had souls and could express human emotions; but was opposed to the Theory of Evolution. Beard exhibited widely and his works can be seen at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York Historical Society, Brooklyn Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum, Amon-Carter Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago and the Rhode Island School of Design.

1864 Woman with a Cat by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)
oil on canvas 78.3 x 57.2 cm
Worcester Art Museum, MA

Courbet was the main exponent of Realism in 19th-century French painting. His work contrasts with the Classicism of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and the Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix. He relied on the use of the palette knife to create heavily impastoed surfaces, as if to stress his disdain for the fine finish of academic practice.

Courbet was born at Ornans in eastern France and received his early training in Besançon. In Paris from 1840, he studied especially the Dutch and Venetian paintings in the Louvre. He exhibited at the Salon in 1844, but public and official favour later deserted him. His mature works often treat genre subjects on the grand scale of history painting, as in his ambitious painting of his studio. After this was turned down by the Exposition Universelle in 1855, he held a one-man exhibition establishing his position as a Realist.

From the 1850s he travelled extensively in France. He was later imprisoned for his prominent role in the Commune in 1871 - as Director of Museums he was held responsible for the destruction of the column in the Place Vendôme. The National Gallery’s (London)“Still Life with Apples and Pomegranate” was painted in prison. His last years were spent in exile in Switzerland.

1866 A Young Girl with a Cat by Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
oil on canvas 71.1 x 56.2 cm

Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot was a French painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Sponsored by the government and judged by Academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. It was held at the studio of the photographer Nadar. Morisot went on to participate in all but one of the following eight impressionist exhibitions, between 1874 and 1886. She was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet. Morisot was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Note: A series on the works of Berthe Morisot can be found in the index of this blog.

1867 Her favourite Pet by Léon Jean Bazille Perrault (1832-1908)
oil on canvas 56 x 46 cm
Private Collection

Léon-Jean-Bazille Perrault was a French academic painter. Parrault was born to a modest family in Poitiers. A student of William Bouguereau and François-Edouard Picot, he exhibited at the Salon from 1863 onwards, producing many genre works which were immensely popular. He was famous for his le petit naufragé (The little shipwrecked boy, 1874) and his paintings of children.

c1867 Child holding a white Cat by Léon Jean Bazille Perrault (1832-1908)
oil on canvas

1870 A Flood by Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
oil on canvas 99 x 145 cm
Manchester Art Gallery, UK

John Everett Millais was  an English painter and book illustrator (1829 - 1896). A child prodigy who was hard-working as well as naturally gifted, he became the youngest ever student at the Royal Academy Schools when he was 11, and although he suffered some temporary setbacks in his twenties, his career was essentially one of the great Victorian success stories. In 1848, with Rossetti and Holman Hunt, he founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and had his share of the abuse heaped against the members until Ruskin stepped in as their champion.

Note: A series on the works of John Everett Millais can be found in the index of this blog.

before 1874 Still Life with Cat and Birds by José Agustín Arrieta (1803-1874)
oil on canvas 63 x 86 cm

José Agustín Arrieta was a Mexican genre painter or costumbrista painter known for his scenes of everyday life in nineteenth-century Puebla, the city in which he lived most of his life. He was most prolific, however, as a still life painter, depicting many typical Mexican foods and dishes.

1874 Favourite Kitten by Émile Munier (1840-1895)
oil on canvas

During the 1860s, Munier received three medals at the Beaux-Arts and in 1869 he exhibited at the Paris Salon. He became a great supporter of the Academic ideals and a follower of Bouguereau. whose subject matter would be an important inspiration to the young Munier. Bouguereau's quality of work and composition are reflected in Munier's artworks. The pair became close friends and Munier frequently visited Bougereau's studio; the latter used the nicknames "La sagesse" or "Le sage Munier" when referring to Munier.The glass designer Émile Gallé was another artist Munier was known to work with from around 1869.

1875 Mother and Child with a Kitten by Émile Munier (1840-1895)
oil on canvas 95.6 x 74 cm

c1875 Woman with a Cat by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 1919)
oil on canvas 56 x 46.4 cm
National Gallery of Art.Washington, DC

1877 Puss in Boots by John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
oil on canvas 106.7 x 79.3 cm
Dundee Art Galleries and Museums Collection, UK

after 1878 The cat's repast by Joseph Bail (1862-1921)
oil on panel 13 x 15.2 cm 

Joseph Bail was born in Limonest in the Rhone region of France. His father, Jean-Antoine Bail, was a trained genre painter who was heavily influenced by the Dutch masters and focused his attention on depicting scenes from daily life. It is clear that Joseph, as well as his brother Frank, followed in the footsteps of his father, as he too would be influenced by these artists despite new interests in subjects and representation during this period in France.

Just after his sixteenth birthday, Bail debuted at the Salon of 1878, alongside both his father and brother, with Nature Morte (Still Life). He regularly submitted to the Salons and towards the end of his careers was “hors concours”, or exempt from having to submit his works for jury approval.

n.d. Domestic Scene, Boy with a Water Pitcher and a Cat by Joseph Bail (1862–1921)

after 1878 Woman With Cat by Joseph Bail (1862-1921)
oil on canvas 35.7 x 45.8 cm

1878 Two Kittens and a Pocket Watch by Louis Eugene Lambert (1825-1900)

Louis Eugene Lambert is famous for his images of cats and dogs, and was nicknamed “Lambert of the Cats.” A student of Eugene Delacroix, he became influenced by the Flemish School. Hid major success at the Paris Salon was Cat and Parakeet. His cats have been likened to other C19th artists like Henriette Ronner Knip (featured in this series), and Julius Adam, among others.

1880 Sleeping Girl with a Cat by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(1841-1919)
oil on canvas 120 x 94 cm
Clark Art Institute Williamstown, MA

1880 The Morning Meal by Émile Munier (1840-1895)
oil on canvas 67.9 x 55.8 cm

c1880 Cat with Lantern by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915)
woodblock print 30.7 x 43.5 cm
National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian

Kobayashi Kiyochika was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his colour woodblock prints and newspaper illustrations. His work documents the rapid modernization and Westernization Japan underwent during the Meiji period and employs a sense of light and shade called kōsen-ga inspired by Western art techniques. His work first found an audience in the 1870s with prints of red-brick buildings and trains that had proliferated after the Meiji Restoration; his prints of the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 were also popular. Woodblock printing fell out of favour during this period, and many collectors consider Kobayashi's work the last significant example of ukiyo-e.

c1880 Woman with a Cat by Edouard Manet
oil on canvas 92.1 x 73 cm
Tate, London

1880s Cat and Mouse by Kyosai Kawanabe (1831-1889)
woodblock print

Painter, print artist and collector. Pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, later Maemura Towa and Kano Tohaku. Working in a wide range of fields of both 'Ukiyo-e' and more classical styles of painting, Kyosai produced many so-called 'crazy sketches' of a uniquely individual kind. He combined technical mastery with generous wit and a grandeur of conception.

1881 Cat in a Cottage Window by Ralph Hedley (1848-1913)
oil on canvas 74 x 64 cm
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Ralph Hedley was a painter and woodcarver, best known for his paintings of everyday life in the North East of England. He studied art and design, and at 13 years of age began an apprenticeship to Thomas Tweedy in his carving workshops. Examples of his wood carvings can be found at St Nicholas Cathedral, St. Andrew’s Church, and many other North Eastern churches. Many of Hedley’s oil paintings can be seen in the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.

1881 Girl holding a Cat by Albert Anker (1831-1910)
Private Collection

Albert Anker (1831–1910) is regarded as the “national painter” of Switzerland. His meticulous paintings of Swiss rural life endeared him to the public and during his heyday, he was regarded as the most popular artist. His works captured the daily and social life of the rustics in the picturesque villages of Switzerland. While these captured the imagination of the public, his portraits charmed the critics. Indeed, his portraits and still-lifes are what cemented his enduring legacy. Unlike many of his contemporaries, his documentation of the social life of villagers was never judgmental. Rather he portrayed them as plain and unpretentious. Anker also worked on many still-lives, which are considered to be among his most important works.

Note: A series on the works of Albert Anker can be found in the index of this blog.

1881 The Awakening by Sophie Gengembre Anderson
(1823-1903)
oil on canvas 66 x 78.7 cm
Private Collection

Sophie Gengembre Anderson was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre paintings of children and women, typically in rural settings. She began her career as a lithographer and painter of portraits, collaborating with Walter Anderson on portraits of American Episcopal bishops. Her work, Elaine, was the first public collection purchase of a woman artist. Her painting No Walk Today was purchased for more than £1 million.

1882 Girl With a Cat by Ivan Kramskoi (1837-1887)

Ivan Kramskoy was a Russian painter and graphic artist. He was born in 1837 in Ostrogozhsk in south-western Russia. During his childhood Kramskoy independently studied drawing and later began working with watercolour. When he was 16 he worked as a colour-correction artist for a photographer. In 1856 he moved to St. Petersburg and continued to work with photographers. The following year he entered the Arts Academy. During his academy years he gathered the progressive youth around him. He often employed his favourite graphic technique, using sauce, bleach and Italian pencil. Using this method he drew portraits of other artists.

In 1863-1868 Kramskoy taught at the Drawing School of the Artist Encouraging Society. By the end of the decade the St. Petersburg Team lost its unity and social status. Kramskoy left it and became one of the founders of the Peredvizhniki Society (The Comradeship of Moving Arts Exhibitions).

His prevailing success remained in portraiture. In the 1870s-80s he created some of his best works, including a series of portraits of prominent people of the tim such as Leo Tolstoy. During his lifetime Kramskoy also executed many commissions for church paintings and portraits to earn his living.

Note: A series on the works of Ivan Kramskoy can be found in the index of this blog.

c1881-82 Girl and Cat by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
oil on canvas

1882 Her best Friend by Émile Munier
oil on canvas 68.5 x 50.8 cm

1882-1913 Cat with her Kittens by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 19 x 29 cm
Private Collection

Julius Adam was a member of the important Adam family of Munich artists. His grandfather was Albrecht Adam, his uncles were Benno, Franz and Eugen Adam, and his cousin Emil Adam, all painters. His father, also called Julius Adam (1821–1874), was primarily a lithographer and photographer. At first Adam (the son) was occupied with landscape photography and worked for his father's business in Rio de Janeiro but later returned to Munich and settled down as a genre painter.

c1882-1913 Four Kittens and Crayfish by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 22.5 x 33.5 cm
Palais Dorotheum, Vienna

1883 Kitten playing with a Ball of Yarn on a blue Blanket by Julius Anton Adams
oil on wood panel 20 x 27 cm

1888 A Cat playing with a Ball of Wool by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 47.5 x 72 cm

1900 Mother Cat with her two Kittens by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 27 x 39 cm

1905 Lying Cat by Julius Anto Adams
oil on canvas 25 x 46 cm

n.d. Five Kittens in the Basket by Julius Anton Adams
oil on wood panel 32 x 42.5 cm

n.d. Five lying Kittens by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 22.8 x 36.2 cm

n.d. Four Kittens with Grasshopper in the Stable by Julius Anton Adams
oil on wood panel 32.5 x 43.5 cm

n.d. Kittens playing in the Hayloft by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas 97 x 75.5 cm

n.d. The Two Friends by Julius Anton Adams
oil on panel 16 x 21 cm

n.d. Two Kittens by Julius Anton Adams
oil on canvas laid on wood panel 20.5 x 26.5 cm

1883 Cat goes Bird Hunting by Bruno Andreas Liljefors
(1860-1939)
oil on canvas 93 x 123 cm
Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden

Bruno Andreas Liljefors was a Swedish artist. He is perhaps best known for his nature and animal motifs, especially with dramatic situations. He was the most important and probably most influential Swedish wildlife painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He also drew some sequential picture stories, making him one of the early Swedish comic creators.

1884 In the Pantry by Carl Reichert (1836-1918)
oil on panel 14.5 x 18.5 cm

Carl Reichert was painter of genre, animals and town scenes. He was the son of the portrait and animal painter Heinrich Reichert, the brother of Heinrich Reichert who painted theatre scenery and the nephew of Bonfiaz Heinrich and Franz Heinrich Reichert. Carl was a student at the Academy of Drawing in Gratz with J. Tunner and E. Chr. Moser. He then studied in Munich and from 1866 to 1867 in Rome with Ludwig Joh. Passini and Anton Romako. From 1869 to 1910 he worked in Vienna and then later in Gratz. He published a series of engravings depicting the ‘old’ Gratz and in particular the castle. Carl is well known for his small-scale highly detailed portraits of dogs. The museum in Baden-Baden houses a work by the artist.