sutton059

from the museum's collection

Judith Blunt-Lytton, Lady Wentworth , was a great-grandchild of Lord Byron and a noted authority on Arabian horses. She did write one book on toy dog breeds, in which she offhandedly notes this jewel of a family anecdote: A liking for dogs runs in my family. Lord Byron, my great grandfather, wrote verses on his own dog which are too well known to quote, but the epitaph he wrote on a pet dog belonging to Lady Byron is not so well known:  Alas, poor Prim, I'm sorry for him. I'd rather by half It had been Sir Ralph. Sir Ralph Milbanke being his father-in-law, the verse has the usual caustic Byronic vigour. I couldn't find any images of Prim, but I did turn up this Guardian pictorial article on Byron's dogs , if you're interested.  -  Wentworth, Lady, 1873-. Toy Dogs And Their Ancestors: Including the History And Management of Toy Spaniels, Pekingese, Japanese And Pomeranians. London: Duckworth, 1911. p. 7.

not mrs. thievery, but a great image from pixabay 1952, Cook Islands, the South Pacific:  New Zealander Tom Neale arrives on the Anchorage islet of Suwarrow , where he will live by himself for stretches of time until 1977.  Well, not strictly by himself.  Wild pigs and chickens had been left on the islet from a wartime settlement, and then there were two other fellow imports, as we see in this bit from Neale's memoir : ...I decided it was imperative to take a cat, for though I knew Suvarov had virtually no insects or mosquitoes, it did have a colony of small indigenous rats. With all my carefully sealed tins, it was unlikely they would eat me out of shack and home, but I just happen to hate rats. As I was already the possessor of an old cat with a kitten I decided to take them both with me, and so that they should travel in style I built a special box to house them for the six-day boat journey. We were not old friends. As a matter of fact, I had only had the mother cat fo...

Hello Museum friends!  The staff and I are on a break...planning to be back with you all a week from today.  Stay tuned!

actual photo is crooked

Gift of the Estate of Dr. Eleanor Z. Wallace www.brooklynmuseum.org This woodcut by Mochizuki Gyokusen (Japanese, 1794-1852) shows the simplest of pleasures. "Mouse Eating Pea Pods," ca. 1850. 

From a book on the dog and the cat in Japanese superstitions: * * * Originally there were only wild cats in Japan, but in the time of the Emperor Ichijô (986-1011) some specimens of the small house-cat were imported from China. As they were very rare, their price was high, and only the Emperor and a few rich noblemen could afford to keep them. How much His Majesty liked these so-called Kara-neko or “Chinese cats” we read in the O-u-ki ( the diary of Fujiwara no Sansuke - curator ) and the Makura no soshi ( also known as The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon - curator ). The former book states that “on the 19th day of the 9th month of the year 999 a cat brought forth young in the Palace. The Left and Right Minister had the task of bringing the kittens up, and prepared boxes (with delicacies) and rice and clothes for them (as for newborn babies). Uma no myöbu, a Court lady, was appointed wet-nurse of the cats. The people laughed at the matter and were rather astonished.” Another funny thing...