Carl Kahler: My Wife’s Lovers

It is the largest cat painting in the world: it is 2.6 meters long and 1.8 meters wide, and it weighs more than a hundred kilos.

There are 42 cats in the picture.

The title is an ironic reference to the fact that the lady who ordered it (or, according to the concept of the painting, the wife) devotes much more love, time and attention to her cats than to her own husband. The woman had many cats, according to some there were more than three hundred. The kittens lived in special comfort, surrounded by caretakers day and night. Of course, these weren’t just any cats, some were worth thousands of dollars. The Persian cat named Sultan posing in the middle of the picture, for example, came to California from Paris. If contemporary news reports are to be believed, the woman bought canaries and other songbirds just to entertain her furry pets.

The painter Kahler was commissioned in 1891 to capture the most beautiful cats. Having never painted cats before, he spent more than two years studying the poses of cats. He made countless sketches before starting the picture. He ended up getting $5,000 for the painting, which would be roughly $170,000 in today’s prices. This translates to HUF 55 million.

The picture traveled to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and in 1906 it was exhibited at the Palace of Art salon in San Francisco. This year, a huge earthquake shook the city, in which the salon was completely destroyed. Three thousand people lost their lives in the deadliest earthquake in US history, including the painter Carl Kahler. The picture, however, survived the disaster.

The work was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in 2015 for more than $826,000 (approx. HUF 270 million) and is currently on display at the Portland Museum.

Source