Sketches from Life: Cat, Shen Chou, Ming dynasty, Album. The National Palace Museum, Taiwan.

Shen Chou (1427-1509) was a native of Soochow in Kiangsu and went by the style name Ch'i-nan and the sobriquets Shih-t'ien and Pai-shih-weng. Gifted at poetry and calligraphy, he excelled at landscape painting and also depicted plants and animals in monochrome ink. This painting of a cat is one of sixteen leaves in an album of plants and animals sketched from life that Shen Chou did at the age of 67. Perhaps the day the artist painted was cold, because the cat shown here is rolled into a ball as if to keep warm. The two gleaming eyes stand out against the gray fur and seem to stare in alertness as if scanning the upper right for anything going on. The cat has a supple body and can position itself into most any “yoga” pose. The composition of this original portrayal seems to have been based on this “acrobatic” skill of the cat.