Cats in Art: The Scullery Maid (Crespi)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi. 

Image credit ARTILIM Online Art gallery, here.  Guiseppe Maria Crespi, The Scullery Maid, c. 1710-15, Oil on canvas, 16" x 12", held by Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

 

Zuffi comments:

 

In the solitude of the kitchen, in the corner warmed by the hot coals that still glow in the fireplace, there appears the unmistakably rounded outline of a sleeping cat, a silent, discreet companion in the young scullery maid's life.

 

Cat + chair + heat = an unbeatable combination.  Crespi was so good at capturing ordinary scenes from ordinary life, even on such a small canvas as this one, little more than a foot square.

 

 

Cats in Art: Young Woman with Rose and a Cat (Crespi)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.

Image credit here (from a local art lover) .  Young Woman with Rose and a Cat, c. 1695-1705, Guiseppe Maria Crespi, oil on canvas, 26" x 22", held by Pinacoteca Nazioanle, Bologna, Italy.

Zuffi comments:

The attractive young woman in the painting is teasingly prodding the cat with the prickly stem of a rose.  The animal seems to enjoy the attention, with the particular pleasure that cats experience in being caressed in sensitive spots, especially behind the ears, purring loudly in return. 

"The animal seems to enjoy the attention"  Seems??  You put anything pointy or angular anywhere near a cat's face and the cat is powerless to resist--it'll rub and scratch its cheeks and whiskers against the pointy object almost indefinitely.