Cats in Domestic Scenes

The cat rarely appeared in naturalist painting before the 18th century, although Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) appears to have found the anatomy of the cat fascinating.

Some of his sketches are as accurate as photographs in their portrayal of cats in action and asleep, while others are more fantastical and dragonlike.

As European artists moved away from the old subjects of religion, history, and mythology, and turned to illustrating scenes from daily cats began to appear in domestic scenes.

In England, William Hogarth painted his famous portrait The Graham Children, which includes an alert cat, and the great animal portraitist George Stubbs (1724-1806) painted his only known study of a cat, Miss Anne White's Kitten In France, artists Antoine Watteau (1684-1721).

Jean Fragonard (1732-1806), and in Italy Giovanni Tiepolo (1696-1770), all included contented cats in their paintings, curled on the laps of shepherdesses, in the arms of mistresses, or simply idling in luxury with their owners.

A portrait of a  boy, Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga by Francisco Goya (1746-1828), shows three plamp cats eyeing  the young boy's tethered magpie.

Few of these representations come close to the anatomical perfection of Leonardo da Vinci's best, sketches, and it was not until the influence of the famous French painter and naturalist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) spread that realism was once more achieved.