come and get it

photo credit: yale university art gallery (PD)

I think he'll need more than one bowl.  No doubt that's what Edwin Austen Abbey (American, 1852-1911) was thinking too when he sketched this "Old Man feeding his cats."  (That's how it's cataloged.  It looks more like an old woman to me, but I don't work at Yale, so the hell with your friendly curator.) Abbey earned a great deal of acclaim in his day; his most famous work is the series of "Quest for the Holy Grail" murals at the Boston Public Library, and he was made a member of the Royal Academy after setting in London, to name a couple of high points.  Still, here he is taking a moment and a pencil to scratch up a scene we all know well: dinnertime for the tribe.  I am in awe of how perfectly Abbey indicates fluid cat anatomy with the merest outline.  Look at the white cat under the bowl, looking up with what you know is longing, head tilted to the Holy Milk Grail.