string!

Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch, www.nga.gov (PD)

This delicate portrait by Joseph Goodhue Chandler (American, 1813-84) dates from c. 1836-38.  He had only just embarked on his painting career, and most of his early work is of family members.  Perhaps this brown-eyed "Girl With a Kitten" is one of these relations.  It's interesting to me how well modeled her face is compared to the flattened treatment of her dress and her pose; I also note the fine spray of greenery outside the window, which to me reflects all the tender growing this young lady has ahead.  As sweet as she looks, she's got a fierce companion:

Would you look at that face?  What a mighty hunter.  

feeling warm

wikimedia commons (PD) - Yoshitoshi [CC0]

1888, Japan:  get a kotatsu stove, enough quilts, and a handy cat, and finally you'll be "Feeling Warm" like the title of this print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japan, 1839-1892).  In his later years this great ukiyo-e woodblock artist suffered severely from depression, yet was able to create this snug and peaceful scene.  Look how perfect that splash of crimson sleeve is, just enough not to overpower the scene, providing a spark of heat.  Lovely.

a cat in the meadow

www.nationalmuseum.se, Purchase 2013 Sophia Giesecke Fund

We've seen Bruno Liljefors' cats here before at the Museum, pretending for a few moments to be mighty lords of the jungle as they hunt and play in Swedish fields.  As winter closes in here in the Northwest, I find it pleasant to post another.  Cat in a Flowery Meadow was created in 1887, a memory of a young cat and a fine day that reminds us of other kittens and blooms to come.

companions

Vladimir Borovikovsky [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

1814: a well-to-do, artistic young couple poses with their woolly poodle.  This portrait of A.A. and A.G. Lobonov-Rostovsky - I can't figure out which is which - was painted by Vladimir Borovikovsky (Ukrainian-Russian, 1757-1825).  A popular portrait painter, he grew up in a family of icon illuminators.  I wonder if that has anything to do with the luminosity his portraits often show; those of his sitters who are young and/or beautiful often seem lit from within.  In this case that even extends to the dog:

pup bib

Gift of Mrs. Charlene S. Kornblum and Dr. S. Sanford Kornblum (M.2017.41)
www.lacma.org

Though this puppy is crafted of paulownia wood and glazed with gofun (a white made of ground oyster shell), his spiffy bib is made of silk.  That bib has stayed bright since a craftsman tied it on him in mid-19th century Japan.  Speaking of bright, don't you love his little red toenails? 
For another view of him from the side, visit his page at the LA County Museum of Art and look for View 2.

a leonberger

www.rijkmuseum.nl
Jonkheer P.A. van den Velden Bequest, The Hague

Leonbergers are large dogs (males run 110-170 lbs.), known for their intelligence and gentle dispositions.  You can see that in this chalk and watercolor portrait by the Dutch artist Otto Eerelman, who was particularly known for his work with dogs.

the cat as doctor

thanks reusableart.com

C. Howard Young suffered from a number of ailments during his life, and even so managed to live a decent span of days (1853-1927).  His 1897 memoir, Sunny Life of an Invalid, isn't as grim as you'd think (a little of it is).  In fact, most of it is chatty, informal, witty and self-deprecating, and appreciative of every comfort that came his way.  He dedicates an entire chapter to "Cats as Doctors: A Debt of Gratitude Paid to Cats."  Here's one of the tribute tales:
* * *
I should allude more at length to the pussy who cared for me at Asbury Park, NJ.
Sitting on the veranda, one summer eve, a poor, woe-be-gone cat slunk by, with pitiful appeals. It was soon to become a mother.
We called it, but in vain. It feared. All men's hands, it felt, were against it. And men's feet, too.
My sister, who had sympathy for all that suffered, always had good influence on all animals. She followed it, and talked soothingly, and soon came back with it. We petted it a few days, and then my sister prepared a bed for it in the woodshed. Large oyster shells were placed around the interesting patient, with various delicacies in them, and the feline population of the United States of America was soon augmented by six.

The next day, that cat appeared in my room with one baby kitten in her mouth. As there was another bed in my room I had it covered with journals. The kitty waited patiently, sprang up, and laid number one on the bed; then emigrated to import the other five kittens.
That cat then took care of the six kittens and myself, and at times brought them over for a visit to my bed. It seemed to regard me as a kind of godfather. Also seemed to regard my bed as possessing superior accommodations for cat housekeeping. "Cast your bread upon the waters." Well, it was this same cat (cats seem to apply the injunction to increase and multiply) that later, with a new family under the stoop, chased away a burglar, by fastening her claws in the calf of his leg at midnight. Possibly, or even probably, she thought the intruder was after her feline family, as well as her adopted human family, but "One good turn deserves another." From the oaths I heard on the veranda, I can see that the burglar felt that one bad turn deserves a scratch. Several!
* * *
Young, C. Howard 1853-1927. Sunny Life of an Invalid. Hartford, Conn.: Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1897. pp. 163-4.

the young squire

Print made by Alfred W. Cooper, active 1850–1901, British, The Young Squire (tail piece), undated, Wood-engraving with hand coloring on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection recto

Who's The Young Squire?  Is it one of these two, or are they waiting on the young squire to come down?  Why can I find lots of artwork by Alfred W. Cooper (British, d. 1901), and almost no information about him?  By the way, this is a "tail piece," and that's not a pun; a tail piece is a design or illustration at the foot of a page or the end of a chapter or book.

southey reports on dutch cats

Robert Southey, the English poet and adorer of cats, went travelling to Holland in 1825.  While there, he wrote home to his son, reporting mostly on his host's pet stork (I think I may post about that too).  He had this to add at the end, in order to inquire about the feline contingent of the family:

. . . My love to your sisters and to everybody else. I hope Kumpelstilzchen has recovered his health and that Miss Cat is well, and I should like to know whether Miss Fitzrumpel has been given away and if there is another kitten. The Dutch cats do not speak exactly the same language as the English ones. I will tell you how they talk when I come home.
God bless you, my dear Cuthbert.
Your dutiful father,
Robert Southey.

-- Colson, Elizabeth. Children's Letters: a Collection of Letters Written to Children by Famous Men And Women. New York: Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, 1905. p. 66.

vintage wednesday

Small dog, circa 1870, Dunedin, by Burton Brothers studio. Te Papa (O.034227)

I'm currently out of my own discoveries for Vintage Wednesday, but I found this fine portrait at the Museum of New Zealand's collection.  This was taken at the Burton Brothers studio in Dunedin, NZ.

in which a cat is exhorted to vacate a chair, c 1814

thanks pixabay (CC0 Creative Commons)

In the poem below, the living Cat, and the Cat living at Bristol, is one and the same, and he's named Cropps.  Just so you know going in.

LINES
Addressed to a living Cat, and to a Cat living at Bristol.
(Written at Bristol at the Request of her Mistress.)

O CAT! thy virtues to rehearse,
Does honor to my feeble verse;
Sure never cat was like to thee,
Such qualities in you I see;
So kind, so faithful, and so good,
You must be born of noble blood;
So restless after rats and mice,
You scent, then kill 'em in a trice,
If at them you can get, and if not,
Your mistress moves away the black pot
At your request, who, purring, ask

Her to perform that grateful task.
You watch your mistress while asleep,
And on her breast most faithful keep.
O, Cropps! still may you long survive
All other cats that near you live;
When they lie mould'ring in the dust,
May you drink milk to quench your thirst;
While they are rotting in the grave,
May you the house from vermin save;
But that you may, be careful, Cropps,
When into chair your master pops,
You swiftly from that chair descend,
Lest crush'd you are and meet your end.
A burnt child dreads the sight of fire,
And you did nearly once expire;
By stopping in the chair too long.
When down your master sat so strong;
Be careful, then, of master's chair —
I'll say no more to you this year.

-- from Prince, J. H. b. 1770. Eccentric Effusions, Consisting of Poems, Humorous, Satirical, Sentimental And Moral. London, 1814. pp. 65-6.

cat helps keep you clean

Child's Bib, 19th century; cotton; H x W: 59.9 x 45.3 cm (23 9/16 x 17 13/16 in.); 1949-39-1
collection.cooperhewitt.org

This lyrical design, in which the cat is practically one of the surrounding flowers, is resist printed on the fabric of this 19th-century child's bib.

a beautiful dwelling: the skull of a dog

I've got a longer than usual excerpt for you today, because to cut it too much would be to blunt the odd beauty of its thoughts.  In the following passage, artist and essayist Philip Gilbert Hamilton (1834-1894) writes about the skull of a beloved dog that he keeps close to hand.  Though I understand this seems dark to modern sensibilities, the love and respect Hamilton feels for this relic is worth the reading - especially since he grew up an orphan raised by aunts.
* * *
THERE is a little skull amongst the bones I have collected for the study of anatomy, which any slightly scientific person would at once recognise as that of a dog. It is a beautiful little skull, finely developed, and one sees at a glance that the animal, when it was alive, must have possessed more than ordinary intelligence. The scientific lecturer would consider it rather valuable as an illustration of cranial structure in the higher animals; he might compare it with the skull of a crocodile, and deduce conclusions as to the manifest superiority of the canine brain.
To me this beautiful little example of Divine construction may be a teacher of scientific truths, but it is also a great deal more than that. My memory clothes it with mobile muscles and skin, covered with fine, short hair, in patches of white and yellow. Where another sees only hollow sockets in which lurk perpetual shadows, I can see bright eyes wherein the sunshine played long ago, just as it plays in the topaz depths of some clear northern rivulet. I see the ears too, though the skull has none; and the ears listen and the eyes gaze with an infinite love and longing.
She was the friend of my boyhood . . .
Of course the reader cannot be expected to care very much about a poor little terrier that only loved its young master, as all dogs will, by reason of the instinct that is in them, and died more than eighteen years ago. I am willing to believe that millions of dogs have been as good as she was, and a great deal more valuable in the market, but no skull in the best natural history collections in Europe could tempt me to part with this. Every year makes the relic more precious, since every year certain recollections gradually fade, and this helps me to recover them. You may think that it is a questionable taste to keep so ghastly a reminder. It does not seem ghastly to me, but is only as the dried flower that we treasure in some sacred book. When I think by how much devoted affection this bony tenement was once inhabited, it seems to me still a most fair and beautiful dwelling.

* * *

-- Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 1834-1894. Chapters On Animals. Boston: Roberts brothers, 1893. pp. 17-8.

two tender creatures

Smithsonian American Art Museum http://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1977.92

"Sit for me just a little," I imagine J. Alden Weir saying to his wife Anna sometime round 1890. "I want to paint you exactly as you are right now."  The result was this small impressionistic oil "Portrait of a Lady with a Dog (Anna Baker Weir),"  kept in the family till the 1970's.  (The dog's name was Gyp.)  Weir was a member of "The Ten," the breakaway group of American artists that challenged stylistic and exhibition norms of the time. An interesting and detailed account of Weir can be found on the NPS.gov site of his farm, here.

in which a pet goldfinch is lovingly remembered

Goldfinch, being wild birds, aren't pets for us today.  However, in a book of pet care dated 1862, I found this (unattributed) story of a beloved pet goldfinch's last years.

I myself until lately possessed a goldfinch which I would not have parted with for an entire aviary of the choicest songsters. He was thirteen years old when he came into my keeping, and his eyes were beginning to fail him. They grew weaker and weaker, till at last the glare of the sunlight was more than he could bear, and I made him curtains of green gauze for which he was very grateful, and never failed to reward me with a bit of extra good music when they were pulled round his cage on sultry afternoons. When he was seventeen years old he went quite blind, but that did not at all interfere with the friendship that existed between us. He knew my footstep as I entered the room, he knew my voice,—I do believe he knew my cough and sneeze from any one else's in the house. He was extremely fond of cabbage-seed, and the door of his cage having been previously opened, I had only to enter the room and call out “cabbage-seed, cabbage seed,” to make him fly out of his cage and come to me. Sometimes I would hide behind the window-curtains, or beneath a table, and it was curious to see him put his little blind head on one side for a moment, to listen in what direction my voice proceeded, and then to dart unerringly to my head or shoulder. What is most remarkable, my brother (whose voice is singularly like mine) has often tried to deceive the blind goldfinch by (im)personating me; but I do believe he might have called “cabbage-seed, cabbage-seed,” till it sprouted in his hand, and the blind finch would not stir an inch. One morning when the blind bird was upwards of eighteen years old, I entered the room; alas! he was deaf to the enticement of cabbage-seed—he was dead at the bottom of his cage.

Weir, Harrison, 1824-1906, and Samuel Orchart Beeton. The Book of Home Pets: Showing How to Rear And Manage, In Sickness And In Health, Birds, Poultry, Pigeons, Rabbits, Guinea-pigs, Dogs, Cats, Squirrels, Fancy Mice, Tortoises, Bees, Silkworms, Ponies, Donkeys, Goat, Inhabitants of the Aquarium, Etc. Etc. : With a Chapter On Ferns. London: S.O. Beeton, 1862. 5.

this is the cat of jack's diverting story

thanks hathi trust (PD)
http://bit.ly/2EoSjAp

Remember the house that Jack built and all the things that happened to him thereafter? (Spoiler: He got married and did really well for himself.)  Sometime in the years 1800-43, a prettily colored version was published by John Harris of London.  Titled "A History of the House That Jack Built: A Diverting Story," it includes this picture of the Cat doing in a strangely unconcerned Rat so that it won't eat up Jack's malt.  Jack must have been a brewer. Oh, I guess that explains why he did so well.  Want to see the whole book?  Look here.

we have often sat just so here at the museum

public domain re hathi trust

"I liked to go into the garden.  She used to sit under a tree and read a book, and I used to sit on the seat close to her, and if she stroked me I purred loud." This illustration is from page 129 of Abby Morton Diaz's 1881 book,  The Cats' Arabian Nights, Or, King Grimalkum. (Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.)

landor loses his dog for a minute

thanks british library

A friend of Walter Savage Landor's writes of an exciting few hours during which his dog Pomero was missing, presumed lost...
* * *
Once, when I was staying with him, Pomero was missing for a few hours. We had gone out for a walk to Lansdowne Crescent, . . . when we came back Pomero, who had accompanied us for a short time, and had then turned as we supposed to go home, was not to be found. I shall never forget the padrone's mingled rage and despair. He would not eat any dinner, and I remember how that it was a dinner of turbot and stewed hare, which he himself had seasoned and prepared with wine, etc., in the little sitting-room; for he was a good cook in that way and to that extent. And both of these were favorite dishes with him. But he would not eat, and sat in his high-backed chair, which was not an easy one, or stamped about the room in a state of stormy sorrow, like nothing I had ever seen before, though I saw more than one like tempest afterwards. Now he was sure the dog was murdered, and he should never see him again; some scoundrel had murdered him out of spite or cruelty, or to make a few pounds by him stuffed, and there was no use in thinking more about him; then he would go out and scour all Bath for him; then he would offer rewards—wild rewards—a hundred pounds—his whole fortune—if any one would bring him back alive; after which he would give way to his grief and indignation again, and, by way of turning the knife in his wound, would detail every circumstance of the dog's being kidnapped, struck, pelted with stones, and tortured in some stable or cellar, and finally killed outright, as if he had been present at the scene. But in a short time, after the whole city had been put into an uproar, and several worthy people made exceedingly unhappy, the little fellow was brought back as pert and vociferous as ever; and yelped out mea culpa on his master's knee, in between the mingled scolding and caressing with which he was received.

—Mrs. E. Lynn Linton {Fraser's Magazine, July, 1870).  Excerpted in Mason, Edward T. 1847-1911. Personal Traits of British Authors. v. 1. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1885. pp. 272-3.

appreciating a caged bird

thanks reusableart.com (PD)

The Caged Canary

Morning fair to night succeeds;
Baby's laughing at the fire;
My canary shells his seeds,
And scrapes his beak against the wire.

Now he's tweet-a-tweeting loud,
Ruffling up his wings and neck;
Now he sleeks his plumage proud,
Cleans it clear of spot or speck.

Now with golden feathers flirting
Water over golden sand;
Now his twittering and chirping
Turns to music loud and grand.

What a carol! Why, I'm certain
It would nearly fill a church;
And he sings, and sings, until he
Almost tumbles off his perch.

Oh! my golden, gay canary,
Singing sweetly in all weathers,
Take the thanks of little Mary,
With the sunshine on your feathers!

Grateful for the smallest favours,
Only sand, and seed, and water—
With your gracious, gay behaviours,
Sweet the lesson you have taught her.

Gemmer, C. M. Children of the Sun, Etc., Etc., Etc.: Poems for the Young. London: F. Warne , 1869.127-8. F. Warne was Beatrix Potter's publisher.