chatte et chaton (cat and kitten)

thanks wikimedia commons (PD:old)

Be sure to get a good look at the monkey-like, soft baby face of the white kitten in this 1737 painting by the French Rococo painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry.  Oudry became a professor at France's Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture; painted hunting scenes for King Louis XV, and turned down work from the King of Denmark and Czar Peter the Great.  For such a grand series of accomplishments, Oudry had a way with humbler creatures, and here's the proof.  "Cat and Kitten" shows us not only perfectly rendered cat fur - two little black eyebrows on Kitten! - but a look of pride and pleasure on the mother cat's face.  For me, the Rococo styling shows in the delicate and sinuous yet lush flower to the left.