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Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Printed Ephemera Collection http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/rbpe.07303000 Reading, Massachusetts, the 1860's:  here's your application for your MALE dog's license.  I wonder why they didn't simply provide a space to write that in.

"As young as I look, I am growing older faster than he..."  muses the dog in the first of Billy Collins ' two poems in this TED Talk from 2014.  The dog accepts this calmly in the space of a brief, serene verse. Then we're treated to "The Revenant," a longer piece in which a dog speaks up from the afterlife with a laundry list of comic but legit peeves:  "I hated the car, hated the rubber toys, disliked your friends and worse, your relatives...You always scratched me in the wrong place." Here's your link to this TED Talk .  Short and ultimately tart, and worth the watch!

thanks british library flickr (PD) A little while ago I had a great deal of fun translating some cat proverbs from a huge Italian collection.  Today I'm going back in for wise words on dogs. Remember, I'm doing this with Google Translate, so correct me where you will. Ogni tristo cane abbaia da casa sua -- Every sad dog barks from his house A cane che puzza, dagli, dagli -- A dog that stinks, come on, come on ( Idiom, and I have no clue -- curator ) Canini, gattini e figli di contadini, son belli quando son piccini -- Puppies, kittens and children of peasants are beautiful when they are little ones A cani magri, mosche ingorde -- Lean dogs attract greedy flies Porta rispetto al cane  per amor del padrone - Respect the dog for the sake of its master Un cane arrabbiato corre soltanto nove giorni -- An angry dog runs only nine days (BUT:) Niun cane arrabbiato corre sett'anni - An angry dog runs seven years  ( I wonder which? - curator ) Al cane fu data la coda perche s...

Purchased with the support of the F.G. Waller-Fonds, www.rijksmuseum.nl This engraving of a thoughtful fellow was created by Agostino Caracci circa 1582-85.  If the name sounds familiar but not quite, it's probably because you're thinking of his better-known brother, Annibale (the Italian version of "Hannibal").

detail from a photo in the museum collection Did you already hear about the new dachshund museum in Germany?  (Probably from the Smithsonian article ?)  The Smithsonian does not provide a link to the website, but that's why you have me:  Dachshund Museum .  I've sent you to the English version of the site, but it hasn't been completely translated.  FYI.

from the museum collection

From a collection of dog poetry dated 1912:  Here's Frederick Howard, the 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825), with an epitaph for Rose, the family dog. * * * AN INSCRIPTION TO ROSE WHOE’ER thou art whom chance shall hither lead, O’er the green turf with friendly caution tread; For in the bosom of this beechen shade A lovely Favourite's bones in peace are laid. She asks no pity, your compassion spare, Soon your own woes may want the gushing tear. Happy her life. She ne’er affliction knew, Lov’d by her Mistress, to that Mistress true. And, if Pythagoras hath truly taught, That future joy by former merit’s bought, She may perhaps, changed to the snowy dove, Sleep in the bosom of the Queen of Love; Or haply may her beauteous form retain To scour with Dian's Nymphs the verdant plain. But to her soul should perfect bliss be given For virtues past, she asks no other Heaven, Than here again midst flowery fields to rave, And here again to share her Mistress’ love. * * * Bonus tidbit from...

collection.smk.dk  The Royal Collection of Paintings and Sculptures CC0 1.0 Danish sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen (1863-1945) was twenty when she modeled this bronze Cat with a Rat (1883).  She'd been sculpting animals since the age of 12, when she started with a pet lamb; in her youth a veterinarian friend gave her animal carcasses so she could study musculature.  This is a rough sketch of a cat, getting the feel of its volume and movement, not forgetting the tipped-back ears of a feline still in the exciting throes of the hunt. Nielsen became one of Denmark's most prominent sculptors, studied in Paris, and was the first Danish woman to be awarded the commission for an equestrian monument (a memorial statue for King Christian IX of Denmark).  The National Museum of Women in the Arts has an excellent pair of blog posts on her life - here's Part I and Part II .

from the museum collection

images copyright and by kindest permission of the artist Boston, MA artist Hillary Sprague loves woodcuts.  She comes by this love naturally; as the daughter of a master furniture maker, she grew up watching the beauty of natural materials being shaped in tandem with good craft.  " I find beauty in how their unique properties can influence the direction of your craft- as if you are collaborating together," she writes.   For 2018 she's decided on an intense and fun engagement with her chosen medium.  She's doing a cat-themed woodcut per day till 2019, and that's freehand. No prep drawing, no tracing, just cutting.  Above is "First Light," and below is "Window Seat."  I'm going to reiterate that - one cat woodcut every day.  Longtime readers know how fond I am of woodcuts, so you know I was thrilled. Want to keep up with the challenge and see her other work?  Here's H M S Printmaking on Etsy. Here's her website . Enjoy!

Queens College, Daghlian Collection of Chinese Art, photo by Brita Helgesen 01/24/14. (PD) You know those mugs that are made with a creature waiting at the bottom?  You're drinking your coffee, tea, whatever, and then there's a frog peeking out at you two-thirds of the way down?  I wondered if this bowl from Six Dynasties China (220-568 CE) was the same kind of thing.  However, this bowl is only 2.25 inches high (and 4.375 inches wide), and he sticks up quite a bit.  Perhaps it was fun to eat around him.  I would throw pretzels in with him any day. Six Dynasties China is particularly interesting; while it was a long period of political upheaval, it was also a time of cultures intermingling.  Longtime Museum readers know how much I love those for their fresh, fascinating results, and here's proof right here.  Traditional Chinese art standards were mixed with influences from Buddhism as it infiltrated popular thought, as well as from Central Asian rulin...

I've found a huge collection in Italian with pages (!!) full of cat proverbs.  Everything you see below I translated with GoogleTranslate....so certainly feel free to correct me. *** I buoni gatti prendono topi  in casa e fuori - Good cats take mice indoors and out. I gatti scabbiosi vivono a lungo - Scabby cats live a long time. Gatto nero non divien bianco per sapone - Black cat does not become white for (with) soap. La merda di gatto non e salsiccia arrosto - Cat s**t is not roasted sausage.  ( Dying to know what brought that one about - curator ) Anche i bei gattini hanno unghie aguzze - Even the beautiful kittens have sharp nails.  ( Yes. Yes they do - curator ) Preghiera di gatti non sale in cielo - Cats' prayers don't rise to the heavens. La gatta dice mezzo il suo cuore - The cat tells her heart half (tells half her heart?). Gli amore del gatto finiscono con graffi - Cat's love ends with scratches. Il gatto, quantunque chiuda gli occhi, non e cieco - The cat,...

from the museum collection

Child's Bib, 19th century; cotton; H x W: 59.9 x 45.3 cm (23 9/16 x 17 13/16 in.); 1949-39-1 collection.cooperhewitt.org This lyrical design, in which the cat is practically one of the surrounding flowers, is resist printed on the fabric of this 19th-century child's bib.

Photo credit: Yale University Art Gallery .   Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore This bowl measures 3 3/8 x 7 3/16 in. (8.5 x 18.2 cm), a good size for soup or a salad, perhaps.  I wonder who owned this bowl back in 12th-century Iran, what they liked best to have served in it, and whether they asked specially to have such a graceful, vine-entwined rabbit painted on it.  It was made in Seljuk Period Iran (1038-1194), a period of prosperity and thriving arts ( here's the Metropolitan Museum of Art on that ).  I was also able to find a reference that suggests the rabbit/vine motif celebrates the goodness of life now and to come. 

Takeuchi Seihō [Public domain in Japan], via Wikimedia Commons Are you looking for a hat or a house, little fellow?  We've seen nihonga painter Takeuchi Seiho at the Museum before , but this 1937 "Mouse and Top Hat" is a perfect snapshot of Seiho's use of Western realism in an unmistakably Japanese way. 

I'm going to send you elsewhere in a second, but with good reason:  I don't want you to miss Japanese comic artist Nitori Sasami's 30-part webseries.  Titled "Wonder Cat Kyuu-chan," the comic takes you from a chilly kitty outside in a box to a new home, shopping, and the ways that every day can be special.  I hope it cheers you as much as it did me. Let's go see Kyuu-chan!

I've got a longer than usual excerpt for you today, because to cut it too much would be to blunt the odd beauty of its thoughts.  In the following passage, artist and essayist Philip Gilbert Hamilton (1834-1894) writes about the skull of a beloved dog that he keeps close to hand.  Though I understand this seems dark to modern sensibilities, the love and respect Hamilton feels for this relic is worth the reading - especially since he grew up an orphan raised by aunts. * * * THERE is a little skull amongst the bones I have collected for the study of anatomy, which any slightly scientific person would at once recognise as that of a dog. It is a beautiful little skull, finely developed, and one sees at a glance that the animal, when it was alive, must have possessed more than ordinary intelligence. The scientific lecturer would consider it rather valuable as an illustration of cranial structure in the higher animals; he might compare it with the skull of a crocodile, and deduce co...

Spin the phenakistiscope disk at a mirror, peek through the slits from behind, and watch the kitties leap about and the donkey's ears flap.  Want an idea of how this works?  Here's a very short video . -- Optical Toy, Phenakistiscope Disc with Cats and Donkey, ca. 1830; hand-colored lithograph on paperboard; H x diam.: 25 × 25 cm (9 13/16 × 9 13/16 in.); Museum purchase through gift of Mrs. John Innes Kane; 1948-124-3.  Image: collections.cooperhewitt.org.

www.metmuseum.org  Rogers Fund, 1907 To Western eyes it may be a surprise to see a helmet fashioned to look like a rabbit.  To a Japanese samurai, it made perfect sense:  every child knew of the Rabbit in the Moon, who offered to give up his very life to feed a hungry stranger.  That discipline and sacrifice was a huge part of a samurai's belief.  At this helmet's page at the Metropolitan Museum you can hear a very short podcast about the Moon Rabbit's origin story (click "Audio"), and at this page you can read the different forms the story takes in various traditions. May this Easter see you in the bravest spirits for a fiercely beautiful spring (or autumn, if you are one of my friends from down under)!