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)
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.
Artwork Details
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