Cats as Symbol and Allegory

The Christian Church's hostility toward cats is the most likely reason for their infrequent appearance in early Western art. When a cat does appear, it is often as a symbol of treachery or evil.

The Italian artist Domenico Ghirlandaio(1449 -1494) followed an artistic tradition of portraying a cat sitting at the feet of Judas in his painting The Last Supper.

The cat is thought to indicateJ Judas's treachery. Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) also included a cat of rather sinister appearance in his version of the same scene.

In another painting, The Annunciation, Tintoretto painted a wicked-looking cat on its guard under a  menacing cloud.

The Venetian artist Jacopo Bassano (c. 1517-1592) was one of the few artists of this period to use animals in a natural manner, and included two black-and -white cats in his Animals Going into the Ark.
 
The German painter and engraver Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) produced the intricate woodcut Adam and Eve, in which a number of animals appear.

The mouse is caught by Adam's foot, and may represent human weakness and vulnerability, while the cat is linked by its tail to Eve, and is likely to symbolize sexuality and evil.

The great master of fantasy, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516), painted demonic cats in The Temptations of Saint Anthony, and in many of his paintings the demons resemble the feline form. As the 18th century approached, the association of cats with the devil waned.

 In his paintings The Skate, The Thief in Luck, and The Dead Hare, Jean Baptiste Chardin (1699-1779) showed cats as thieves and gluttons rather than symbols of the devil.

During this period, the English artist William Hogarth (1697-1764) produced a series of works named the "Stages of Cruel which includes depictions of cruelty to cats. This suggests that the cat was no longer regarded as the perpetrator of evil, but as the victim.