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!]

Cats in Art: Leopard (Oudry)

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).

The bride and I had a wonderful vacation in France this fall where we were privileged to see both the Louvre and Orsay Museums.  Of the two, the Orsay was much better--less crowded, could get closer to the paintings, more cats.

This is the fifth and I think final post on the cat art of Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

Image credit Wikimedia Commons, Leopard, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1741, oil on canvas, 51" x 62", held by Staatliches Museum Schwerin (State Museum Schwerin), Schwerin, Germany.

And the kitty close-up:

Oudry painted a bunch of exotic animals, and this leopard is one of the finest.  I assume that in the 1700s, zoos were being established in Europe, enabling painters like Oudry to see real critters to paint from life.

This poor leopard superficially looks fierce and threatening, but to me it's just a bluff: the cat is just plain scared, and Oudry manages to capture that emotion.

[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!]

Cats in Art: The Monkey and the Cat (Oudry)

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).

The bride and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in France where we were privileged to see both the Louvre and Orsay Museums.  Of the two, the Orsay was much better--less crowded, could get closer to the paintings, more cats.

Today is the fourth of at least 5 posts on the cat art of Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

 Image credit Wikimedia Commons, The Monkey and the Cat, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 17439, medium and size unspecified, current holder unspecified.

And the kitty close-ups:

In the photo above, isn't that the most honest cat face you have ever seen?  Practically pleading, "I'm trying hard to be a good kitty.  Really!"

Somewhere on the net I found this image and holder of the painting to be attributed to the Birmingham Museum and Gallery in the UK.  That seems not to be the case when I go to the museum web site.  So I presume that this wonderful image hangs in someone's private collection rather than in a museum for all to enjoy.

Anyway, Oudry's image is associated with the fable by the author Jean de la Fontaine:

In La Fontaine's telling, Bertrand the monkey persuades Raton the cat to pull chestnuts from the embers amongst which they are roasting, promising him a share. As the cat scoops them from the fire one by one, burning his paw in the process, the monkey gobbles them up. They are disturbed by a maid entering and the cat gets nothing for its pains. It is from this fable that the French get their idiom Tirer les marrons du feu, meaning to act as someone's dupe or, deriving from that, to benefit from the dirty work of others. It is also the source of the English idiom 'a cat's paw', defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as 'one used by another as a tool'. 

Also note that on various sites the title of this work is shown as either The Cat and the Monkey, or The Monkey and the Cat.  Sadly, the latter with its featured billing of the monkey seems to be correct.

[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!]

Cats in Art: Cat With a Kitten (Oudry)

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).

The bride and I just returned from a wonderful vacation in France where we were privileged to see both the Louvre and Orsay Museums.  Of the two, the Orsay was much better--less crowded, could get closer to the paintings, more cats.

Today is the third of at least 4 posts on the cat art of Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

Image credit The Athenaeum, Cat With a Kitten, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1737, size and medium unspecified, held in a private collection.

And the close up of the kitties, where I only capture the faces:

Mama cat looks eager and alert while her kitten looks a bit unsettled.  From the number of cats that Oudry painted I must assume that he "owned" cats throughout his lifetime....obviously the reason he was such a great artist.

[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!]