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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

a crazy cat man?

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:US)
Be sure and click on the image to bring it up in bigger size.  How many cats are in there?  I have fourteen but I think there's some more under the seat.  Peg Woffington was a famous Irish actress of the 18th century, and for the life of me I can't find anything about her visiting a crazy cat man.
Here's a funny thing.  You might have thought this was an 18th-century painting, but it was actually done sometime in the career of Percy Thomas MacQuoid (British; 1852-1925).  MacQuoid was an illustrator, theater designer, and furniture expert.  I wonder if that background actually helped provide this piece with its giveaway touches.  See, a fine art painter would have copied the style of the time, gone bigger, bolder, lusher, and wouldn't have shied away from Peg's charms (this "Peg" looks like a hinged Barbie doll and we can't even see her face). This piece is a welter of detail and small fuss, and lit too coldly.
But those kitties are swell, especially that itty bitty one all by itself on the floor - a gesture of a cat, a catlet.

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