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The Cat's Paw

Sir Edwin Henry Landseer and 18191819/1829

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis, United States

In Jean de La Fontaine's seventeenth-century fable, which this painting illustrates, a cunning monkey persuades a cat to retrieve roasting chestnuts from a fire. The term "cat's paw," meaning a person unwittingly duped by another, derives from this tale.
Numerous engraved and painted precedents for the brutality of Landseer's interpretation existed in the work of seventeenth-century Dutch and British illustrators of La Fontaine. The fabulist's symbolic use of animals to describe the tribulations of human existence became popular among nineteenth-century romantic painters and satirists.

Details

  • Title: The Cat's Paw
  • Creator: Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, 1819
  • Creator Lifespan: 1802/1873
  • Creator Nationality: British
  • Date: c. 1824
  • Date Created: 1819/1829
  • origin: England
  • Physical Dimensions: w27.125 x h30 in. (sight)
  • Measurements: 30 x 27 1/8 in. (76.2 x 68.9 cm) (sight) 37 7/8 x 35 1/8 x 2 1/4 in. (96.2 x 89.22 x 5.72 cm) (outer frame)
  • Artist: Sir Edwin Henry Landseer
  • Provenance: Gift of Dr. Roger L. Anderson in memory of Agnes Lynch Anderson
  • Type: Painting
  • Rights: http://new.artsmia.org/contact-us/
  • External Link: Minneapolis Institute of Arts
  • Medium: Oil on panel

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