sutton059

thanks freevintageillustrations.com Nothing like a cozy chat about ghosts between friends.  But if you love Halloween as much as I do, then this makes perfect sense.  Happy Halloween, dear readers all! Keep your black cats safe, and have fun!

images courtesy of the wellcome library, CC BY 4.0 Laurence Andrew (active c. 1510-1537) provided this illustration "Of the Catte" in his book  The noble lyfe & natures of man, of bestes, serpentys, fowles & fisshes yt be moste knowen .  (Want to see the whole book?  It's here .  The poet Algernon Swinburne apparently owned this very copy.) If he actually had a cat, it must have been one of those that likes water, because this is not at all the usual illustration of the sort of Catte you and I know and feed.

http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/ref/collection/bookplate/id/189 no known copyright restrictions From the Thomas Murray Collection at the University of British Columbia's library.  Exact date and creator unknown, but the charm and style of these two friends at the window is easy to see.  I personally think the style looks circa 1910-1920.

Image from page 163 of "The new book of the dog," 1910, PD

The Reddit community r/Artefact Porn is not porn at all (well, it usually isn't, but some of those Roman murals...).  Rather, it's a collection of curious finds from anywhere and any time: a Scythian crown , an Italian boy's little armor , the ruins of Great Zimbabwe .  And an ancient dog head bead: Egyptian/Phoenician Glass Dog Head Bead, 6th-4th century BC[539x381] from r/ArtefactPorn

Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971 www.metmuseum.org No one knows precisely whom they are, this guarded young noblewoman and her fuzzy watchman.  Painted by Alonzo Sanchez Coello around the 1570s  (as it's thought), this "Portrait of a Woman" could be a member of Philip II's court; the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has citations suggesting she's a member of the Pernstein or Aragon families.  I've found out that right about this time, Vratislav von Pernstein , Chancellor of Bohemia, had married two of his daughters into the Aragon nobility.  There's a Mannerist hyperattention to detail in the portrayal of rich textiles and surfaces, but at the same time, there is an intensity here that is arresting.  I say this not only because of this young woman's intense dark-eyed gaze; look at her dog, below. credit as above  Someone he liked?  Someone he didn't trust?  There is an implied third relationship here, and we'll never know whom it was who stoo...

Theodore Roosevelt's letters to his children are a pleasure to read (except for descriptions of big-game hunting, at which you chalk it up to the times, wince, and move on).  They are affectionate, funny, thoughtful, and wide-ranging; there is a passage on Dickens as a writer vs. Dickens as a man which is not at all complimentary toward the latter.  The letters are also full of animal news, as the Roosevelt family was fond of pets.  Here's a couple of passages from January 1908 about two of the White House zoo, including a kitchen cat that invited itself to an official reception. *** White House, Jan. 2, 1908. . . . Mother continues much attached to Scamp, who is certainly a cunning little dog. He is very affectionate, but so exceedingly busy when we are out on the grounds, that we only catch glimpses of him zigzagging at full speed from one end of the place to the other. The kitchen cat and he have strained relations but have not yet come to open hostility.  White H...