the parachutist cats

CC BY-SA full attribution below

While I absolutely cannot say I approve of making cats parachute (though I'm sure it was probably only from a few feet up), I adore this poster.   Found originally at Europeana, this gloriously confident kitty is from the collection at the Circus Museum, online in the Netherlands.  See that record here. Now, finding anything about the Cirque Mexicain was tough, but I did find and translate the following from this page:

 Silvestrini (of the Amoros-Silvestrini brothers, who promoted the most circuses at this time and place - curator) was the introducer of Italian circuses in Spain. Two of them began their tour in Girona: the Circus Jarz (also published as Italian, 1957) and the Aurora Italian Circus (also called Casartelli, 1958). Together with the Circo Cristiani (1958), the three maintained the essence of the circus of yesteryear, familiar, with versatile artists, capable of presenting numbers of diverse disciplines. In some seasons, the Amorós-Silvestrini were associated with the Valencian Salvador Hervás, presenting shows like Circo Mexicain. When this circus visited Girona during the fairs of 1959, journalist Jordi Oms interviewed the trainer Gerardi inside the cage, surrounded by seven lions. 

Citation as found at Europeana: Cirque Mexicain The parachutist cats. Organization for Europe and 
Africa, Salvador Hervas http://europeana.eu/portal/record/2021603/teylers_col28_dat11512_TEY0010005765.html. Manzal Circus Museum http://www.circusmuseum.nl/teylers:col28:dat11512:TEY0010005765. CC BY-SA http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/nl/