Poster for the Company of the Black cat
(Prochainement la très illustre Compagnie du Chat Noir)
(1896)
- Medium
- colour lithograph
- Measurements
- 56.3 × 36.0 cm (image) 61.9 × 40.0 cm (sheet)
- Place/s of Execution
- Paris, France
- Printing/Publishing
- printed by Charles Verneau, Paris
- Inscription
- printed in ink (in image) u.r.: Prochainement / TOURNEE / DU / CHAT / NOIR
printed in ink (in image) l.l.: TA Steilen
printed (vertically) in ink l.c.r.: imp CHARLES VERNEAU. 114, Rue Oberkampf, PARIS - Accession Number
- 2022.857
- Departments
- International Prints / International Prints and Drawings
- Credit Line
- National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased NGV Foundation, 2022 - Gallery location
- Not on display
- About this work
-
This is one of the most recognisable and repurposed images of a cat in art. It was initially the emblem for the Black Cat Cabaret, a popular late-nineteenth-century Parisian club owned and run by Rodolphe Salis. He cleverly brought art, design, performance, food and alcohol together under the one roof. Salis was openly identifying his exotic nightclub with the reputation of black cats as sexually charged and dangerously mysterious nocturnal prowlers. Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen was a well known commercial illustrator and cat lover who constantly drew his families’ cats, and they appear throughout his work in both realistic and stylised forms, such as this all-knowing black cat with piercing orange eyes.
