{
"data": {
"id": 149770,
"accession_number": "1979.82",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "The Monkey and the Cat, probably 1670s. Abraham Hondius (Dutch, c. 1625\u20131695). Oil on canvas; framed: 80 x 93.5 x 6 cm (31 1/2 x 36 13/16 x 2 3/8 in.); unframed: 62.2 x 73.7 cm (24 1/2 x 29 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Butkin Foundation, 1979.82",
"current_location": null,
"title": "The Monkey and the Cat",
"creation_date": "probably 1670s",
"creation_date_earliest": 1670,
"creation_date_latest": 1679,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"Netherlands"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "P - Netherlandish-Dutch",
"type": "Painting",
"measurements": "Framed: 80 x 93.5 x 6 cm (31 1/2 x 36 13/16 x 2 3/8 in.); Unframed: 62.2 x 73.7 cm (24 1/2 x 29 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.8,
"height_inch": 31,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.935,
"width_inch": 36,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.8125,
"depth": 0.06,
"depth_inch": 2,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.622,
"height_inch": 24,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.737,
"width_inch": 29,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "Signed lower left: \"Abraham Hondius\"",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 304412,
"title": "Year in Review: 1979",
"description": "Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980).",
"opening_date": "1980-02-13T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 304550,
"title": "A Cleveland Bestiary",
"description": "A Cleveland Bestiary. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 15-December 16, 1981).",
"opening_date": "1981-10-15T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "The Year in Review for 1979, The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 13 - March 9, 1980:, cat.no. 34, repr. (Bulletin, March 1980).",
"opening_date": "1980-02-13T00:00:00"
},
{
"description": "A Cleveland Bestiary, The Cleveland Museum of Art, October 14 - December 9, 1981: cat. fig. 2l and p. 29.",
"opening_date": "1981-10-14T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1979-",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Butkin Foundation, Cleveland, OH, by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"1 According to a letter from Norman A. Sugarman, president of The Butkin Foundation, to CMA director Sherman Lee, the Foundation acquired the painting in 1974 in exchange for two other works, both of which are unnamed in the letter. Noah Butkin presumably was the other party in this arrangement.
"
],
"date": "1974-1979",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Noah Butkin [1918-1980], Cleveland, OH, probably by exchange to The Butkin Foundation",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "c. 1968-1974",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "(Judson Art Galleries, Kenilworth, IL, sold to Noah Butkin)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "Until c. 1968",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "(Central Picture Galleries, New York, sold to Judson Art Galleries)1",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [
"1 Central Picture Galleries was owned and operated by dealers Jan and Oscar Klein. There are no extant records for the gallery. The provenance of the painting before it was with Central Picture Galleries remains unknown. There was a Hondius of similar subject matter in the sale of the collection of Lady North at Sotheby\u2019s, London, on July 11, 1945 (no. 151). Although the painting\u2019s post-sale and current whereabouts are unknown, Alfred Hentzen\u2019s description of the painting (\u201cAbraham Hondius,\u201d Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunsthalle VIII, 1963, 39-40) as depicting a \u201cmonkey and cat fighting over a deal fowl\u201d indicates it is not the CMA painting.
"
],
"date": "Probably until the mid-1960s",
"sortorder": 5
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": null,
"description": "This picture interprets one of Aesop\u2019s ancient Greek fables (or probably the more contemporary interpretation by Jean de la Fontaine, even more famous at the time), which warns of the dangers of flattery. A monkey sweet-talks a cat into pulling scalding chestnuts out of the fire. The cat finishes the risky and painful task to discover that the monkey has already gobbled up nearly all of them.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60474310"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1979.82-the-monkey-and-the-c"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Norman A. Sugarman, letter to Sherman Lee, Aug. 29, 1979, in CMA curatorial file.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Harry Judson Moore, phone conversation with Victoria Sears Goldman, Jan. 13, 2014.",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 242; Mentioned: p. 243",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \"The Year in Review for 1979.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58-99.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: cat. no. 34, p. 66; Mentioned: p. 60",
"url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25159667"
},
{
"citation": "Kathman, Barbara A. A Cleveland Bestiary. Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 27; Mentioned: p. 21, p. 61",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Corriveau, Bethany. \"Truth and Beauty: Writing about Art.\u201d Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 56, no. 4 (July/August 2016): 22.",
"page_number": "Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 22",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2016-04"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1979.82",
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],
"creditline": "Gift of The Butkin Foundation",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 149770,
"creators": [
{
"id": 2930,
"description": "Abraham Hondius (Dutch, c. 1625\u20131695)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1625",
"death_year": "1695",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1979-11-14T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1670,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "probably 1670s",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": "The vibrant composition is created through a variety of painting techniques. Some of the preparatory layers were left in reserve and remain visible, notably around the ears of the cat. Thicker paint applications, including the flicks of red and yellow, invoke embers scattered throughout the painting. The artist used finely-pointed brushes for many delicate lines that make up the hairs of the animals and wider brushes for the swirling strokes in the background.
The painting is currently undergoing conservation treatment to reduce discolored varnish coatings and to compensate for abrasions linked to previous interventions, which for years had inhibited the full appreciation of the artist\u2019s nuanced brush handling. Old but nonoriginal restoration paint, now safely removed, has revealed many original details that were previously hidden.
In the x-radiograph, an old repaired tear is visible in the mouth of the cat; the lead white adhesive used for the repair is radio-opaque and appears white in the photograph. Additional scientific analysis suggests the use of earth pigments, vermilion, and lead white.",
"has_conservation_images": true,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": true,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:43:30.517000"
}
}