A Michael Broad Blog
This is a lovely photograph as the cat looks like an ancient Egyptian statue. All the ancient Egyptian statues depict elegant, rather slender, shorthaired cats. They remind me of today’s Abyssinian cat and there may be a connection there but there is no evidence. This cat has a grey coat and steely, golden eyes …
In the image below I have tried to present a feel for what the Fertile Crescent was like around 10,000 years ago when ‘at least five different females from the wildcat population’ befriended farmers and founded one of the greatest populations of domestic animal companions the world has seen: the domestic cat. Of course, …
This is a photograph from World War I, the Great War. It was taken by John Warwick Brooke (Lieutenant). It is a black-and-white colourised photograph. It was colourised by Colourising History (aka /u/DBColour). Below it is the original black and white photo. It shows a British soldier perhaps of the Army Service Corps ‘shaking …
This is a cat ‘breed’ that might have happened but it never did. It is also described as the black-headed cat or Mohrenkopf which is German for ‘Moor’s head’. Today morenkopf means a small chocolate-covered cream cake! Enough, I digress. This is a cat that was very rarely seen which could have been picked …
Background Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright and historian. His works are classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. One of his famous titles is The Lady of the Lake. He lived with a cat companion who he gave the extravagant name ‘Hinse of Hinsefeldt’. Hinse and Feld …
Today is a good day to ask whether Vincent van Gogh had a cat because on this day in 1890, Vincent van Gogh shot himself once in the chest. He was aged 37 and it took him two days to die in the company of his beloved brother Theo. Despite being a superb artist, …
This is a legendary cat. The ancient Egyptian Sun-God, Ra (also known as Re) took many forms one of which was a cat. Ra was also depicted as a full-bodied ram, a bull, a lion, a heron, a phoenix and even a serpent. Ra did battle with his arch-enemy Apep, also known as Apopis. …
Miss Frances Simpson was one of three major personalities in the early years of the cat fancy in England. She wrote a book called The Book of the Cat which was published in 1903. In that book she refers to the first American cat show held in the Madison Square Garden, New York, on …
