Cat Museum Amsterdam – Cat Museum: Heady Teufelsbraten

Humans have been trying to domesticate the cat for thousands of years, but it may not be possible. My neighbors’ young hangover is called Klaus. And this because it steals: the bockwurst from the saucepan, the still packaged treats from the shelf. In the rest of the time, Klaus hunts and hits mice and birds in the garden. Already in ancient Egypt, cats from around 2000 were domesticated before our era to keep mice and rats away.

On the other hand, there was already a religious interpretation of cats in earlier eras, i.e. a role before domestication. Cats were not sacred, according to the Egyptologist Julia Budka, but they were associated with various deities. The hangover was linked to the sun god very early in the so -called middle king. And the cat was considered the daughter. Later, goddesses were formerly presented in Löwen figure, such as crafting.

In the later era, Budka continued, there were huge cat catskombs, where millions of cat mummies were buried. The cat mummies were votive to the deities. But it wasn’t really cat loved what happened to these animals. If you look into these animal mummies, they contain animals together. On the other hand, they are mostly young animals to whom the neck was turned over. So they didn’t fall asleep peacefully on the sofa. It was a breed. The animals were used and sold as offerings.

The pairing behavior of the cat associated with noise, the refusal of every command and the many sleep was interpreted by the church superiors as characteristics of a bad character.

In our latitudes, Christianity of the popularity of the cat, which has developed since the 11th century, thwarted a lot of stroke, because from then on it was necessary to eliminate everything pagan – and cats were highly regarded in Germanic mythology. The pairing behavior of the cat associated with noise, the refusal of every command and the many sleep was interpreted by the church superiors as characteristics of a bad character. As the highlight of her demonization, the cat was finally stylized to Satan’s embodiment. When witch burns were the order of the day during the Inquisition to get rid of supposed heretics, it was said that the cat was primarily looking for people as a symbol of the devil in the form of women, especially witches.

In the “Katten Kabinet” (cat cabinet), native to a city villa on the Amsterdam Herengracht and, according to self -promotion, the only cat museum in the world is exhibited from the 2nd century Vu Z. The cat cabinet is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. It was launched by the banker and cat friend Bob Meijer in memory of his hangover John Pierpont Morgan (1966–1983) named after a US entrepreneur.

Some Limericks were devoted to the hangover, including this one: »There was once a hangover in Utrecht, which of conjugal sex was not right. He jumped onto the bed, crawled to the head end & waxed that no sex took place. ”Meijer likes to emphasize that he had learned the” cat nap “from his cozy companion. At the moment, visitors to the cat cabinet can learn the nap from two cats living in the cabinet.

Meijer has compiled an astonishing collection of cat paintings, sculptures, posters and photos. The poster collection alone comprises 450 copies, including »Tournée du Le Chat Noir«, a poster by Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859–1923) from 1895, designed for the Paris Cabaret Le Chat Noir. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) was also connected to the Le Chat Noir and designed posters for the cabaret, such as the “May Belfort”, on which the singer can be seen with her black cat.

Since Jules Chéret (1836–1932) in Paris from 1866 replaced the rather picturesque appearance of the earlier multi-color prints with increasingly extensive and stylized representations, poster art has developed into a “affichomaniac”. The Meijer Poster college made in its cat cabinet to stand on the floor or placed in the garden due to the lack of a wall surface due to a wall area.

The etching “Mary and Child, with cat and snake” (1654) by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669) hangs quite hidden. The simple representation of the Holy Family shows a Dutch interior of the 17th century. Maria sits on an open fireplace with the child of Jesus, Joseph looks at the action through the window behind her while a cat plays with Maria’s rock. The Meijer Collection also includes the more fleeting sketch “The Cat” (1940) by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973).

Henriëtte Ronner-Knip (1821–1909) painted hundreds of well-groomed domestic cats who frolic in the healed world of the interior of the 19th century. The Amsterdam painter Sal Meijer (1877–1965) from a Jewish diamond grinder family kept portraying cats that view the viewers. The mostly black cats of the Russian Impressionist Nicolas Tarkhoff (1871–1930) move in extremely colorful surroundings. The Dutch painter Arian van Gent (* 1970) also repeatedly devotes himself to the cats. He currently exhibits (until September 7th) in the cat cabinet. Probably the most famous cat painting, “My Wife’s Lovers” (1891) from the Austrian genre and animal painter Carl Kahler (1856–1906), which shows 42 cats, mostly, but does not hang in Amsterdam, but is privately owned by the Heather and John Mozart collector’s couple in North Carolina.

The photos in the cat cabinet show celebrities with their cats such as Audrey Hepburn and her cat Orangey, Andy Warhol with one of his cats, all of whom were called Sam, or the English artist Tracey Emin with her cat docket. The French philosopher Jacques Derrida wondered what his cat thinks when she sees him naked, Tracey Emin wonders what her cat thinks when she sees mistress masturbating.

In addition to numerous lovely cat sculptures, the design of the cat figure flipper machine »Lucky Cat« (2003) of the Japanese artist TaaKi Narita (*1970), who lives in the Netherlands, must also be admired. In the stairwell, however, the message of the collage of a Victor IV is: “Cats are not important.”