Title-page

Charles Bennett

1860

Hand-coloured wood engraving.

9 x 6 inches

Illustrated title-page for Bennett’s The Nine Lives of a Cat.

A typically sophisticated visual conceit, with the cat’s nine lives measured by time (in the form of the hour-glass that makes up its body), as it perches on a scythe, symbol of death. The morbid and comical fuse in Bennett’s art, and to modern taste can seem both strange and sickly.

Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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