"
Madame Ronner's favorite models are "Jem" and "Monmouth," cats of rare
sweetness of temper, whose conduct in all relations of life is above
reproach. The name of "Monmouth," as many will recall, was made famous
by the hero of Monsieur La Bedolierre's classic, "Mother Michel and her
Cat," [Footnote: Translated into English by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.] and
therefore has clustering about it traditions so glorious that its wearers
in modern times must be upheld always by lofty hopes and high resolves.
Doubtless Monmouth Ronner feels the responsibility entailed upon him by
his name.
In the European galleries are several noted paintings in which the cat
appears more or less unsuccessfully. Breughel and Teniers made their
grotesque "Cat Concerts" famous, but one can scarcely see why, since the
drawing is poor and there is no real insight into cat character evident.
The sleeping cat, in Breughel's "Paradise Lost" in the Louvre, is
better, being well drawn, but so small as to leave no chance for
expression. Lebrun's "Sleep of the Infant Jesus," in the Louvre, has a
slumbering cat under the stove, and in Barocci's "La Madonna del Gatto"
the cat is the centre of interest. Holman Hunt's "The Awakening
Conscience" and Murillo's Holy Family "del Pajarito" give the cat as a
type of cruelty, but have failed egregiously in accuracy of form or
expression. Paul Veronese's cat in "The Marriage at Cana" is fearfully
and wonderfully made, and even Rembrandt failed when he tried to
introduce a cat into his pictures.
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