Two Children Teasing a Cat

Two Children Teasing a Cat

Before Cleaning  in 2010

Painting in Frame Overal

 Detail: cat

Detail: boy's collar

Detail: cat's ear

Detail: girl's shoulder

Detail: girl's sleeve

Painting in frame: corner

Painting in frame: angled corner

Profile drawing of frame. W 5 5/8 in. 14.4 cm (T. Newbery)

Two Children Teasing a Cat

Artist:
Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bologna 1560–1609 Rome)
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
26 x 35 in. (66 x 88.9 cm)
Classification:
Paintings
Credit Line:
Purchase, Gwynne Andrews Fund, and Bequests of Collis P. Huntington and Ogden Mills, by exchange, 1994

In this picture the viewer is invited to imagine the result of teasing an obviously unhappy cat (you can almost hear it growling). For surely the little girl’s hand will be scratched. The picture thus incorporates a time factor and carries a lesson similar to “Let sleeping dogs lie" and "Don’t go poking around vipers." Painted with a directness and spontaneity that look forward to nineteenth-century art, this picture is among the earliest Italian genre paintings. It belonged to Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo (1663–1753), who also owned Velázquez’s Juan de Pareja.

Provenance
conte Girolamo Ranuzzi, Palazzo Mirabello, Bologna (until d. 1667; inv., 1667, without attribution); conte Camillo Ranuzzi Manzoli, Palazzo Mirabello, Bologna (1667–d. 1678; inv., 1679, no. 9, as by Annibale Carracci); the Ranuzzi family (from 1678; probably sold to Ruffo); Cardinal Tommaso Ruffo, Ferrara and Rome (by 1734–d. 1753; inv., 1734); Litterio Ruffo, duca di Baranello, Naples (1753–d. 1772); Vincenzo Ruffo, duca di Baranello, Naples (1772–76; sold through Sir William Hamilton to Greville); Hon. Charles Francis Greville, London (1776–d. 1809; his estate sale, Christie's, London, March 31, 1810, no. 67, for £65 to Howard); Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire (1810–d. 1825; cat., n.d., no. 125; inv., 1825); the Earls of Carlisle, Castle Howard (1825–1911); Hon. Geoffrey William Algernon Howard, Castle Howard (1911–d. 1935; his estate, 1935–44; his estate sale, Christie's, London, February 18, 1944, no. 16, for £84 to Katz); [Katz, from 1944]; sale, property of a gentleman, Sotheby's, London, July 7, 1976, no. 107, for £14,000; sale, Sotheby's, London, December 11, 1991, no. 20, bought in; sale, Sotheby's, London, April 20, 1994, no. 48, as Attributed to Agostino Carracci, to MMA

Copyright Image
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