That's what the caption to this intense feline portrait says: "Chat de la liberte," adding "D'apres nature" (from life). Why does this cat embody liberty? It seems only Jean-Jacques Lequeu, its illustrator, knew.
Lequeu was an architect and draughtsman in the days leading up to the French Revolution, specializing in visionary, impractical, even eccentric building plans. He also created a number of more domestic drawings, such as the one above (and a number of pornographic ones).
Lequeu, I think, was one of those people who lives keenly for a particular time and place, and never quite recalibrates afterward. Post-Revolution, he became a civil servant instead of an architect.
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