Cats in Art: Little Girl Playing With a Cat (after Droiais)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art.  Having moved on from Stefano Zuffi's marvelous work, The Cat in Art, I am now using some ideas from Caroline Bugler's equally impressive book, The Cat/3500 Years of the Cat in Art.  You really should check out and/or own both of these wonderful works, easily available on Amazon or eBay (and I have no financial interest).

Here are a pair of paintings by Francois-Hubert Drouais that are almost identical....but not quite.  At least to me.  See what you think (and I apologize in advance for the slight graininess, which make it tough to see the details):

Image credit Artnet, Portrait of a Girl Holding a Cat, Francois-Hubert Drouais, auctioned 28 Jan 2005, oil on canvas, 20" x 20", in a painted circle, holder unspecified.

 Image credit Mutual Art, A Girl With a Cat, Francois-Hubert Drouais (signed)  oil on canvas, 25" x 21", with additions, auctioned on Jan. 30, 2014.

In flipping back and forth between the art auction sites Artnet and Mutual Art, I was going a bit buggy.  I think that at least one of these paintings has been auctioned more than once, so that kinda compounds the tracking issue.

Be that as it may, the salient point is that we are dealing with a pair of paintings.  Your eye may be better than mine, but the detail that jumps out at me is the tiny lock of hair hanging down under the girl's hat onto her forehead.  The angle of the hat is also slightly different, more than simply a slight rotation of the round painting.

Also in the first painting--I call it the "brighter" one--the cat's mouth is slightly parted and teeth are visible, making it appear slightly more sinister, perhaps?

Anyway, this is the type of thing that I find myself delving into here with my Cats in Art series.  One other interesting fact: per the Artnet site, there have been some 329 actions of pieces from Francoise-Hubert Drouais.  Wow!

[Gary note: With my Cats in Arts posts, I encourage you to scope out the art appreciation site Artsy (I have no financial interest in the site, I just like it), where you can explore many aspects of the world of art.  You'll certainly be entertained and enlightened!]