On Cats by Jacques Dalbray (1901): Art, History and Details

On Cats by Jacques Dalbray (1901) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (Swiss, 1859–1923).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

On this page from the March 30, 1901, issue of L’Illustration (Illustration), a French magazine, colorful depictions of cats surround a short text praising those animals and their place in history. The cats sit, sleep, and prowl around the columns of text, as if they are furnishings to climb and sleep on. Color illustrations were particularly difficult and expensive to reproduce before the advent of modern printing technology because each color had to be printed independently. As a result, artists like Théophile Alexandre Steinlen developed strategies to achieve the maximum effect by overlapping as few colors as possible, such as the yellow, gray, and black that create a variety of fur patterns here.

Object facts

• Title: On Cats by Jacques Dalbray
• Date: 1901
• Creator attribution: Théophile Alexandre Steinlen (Swiss, 1859–1923)
• Culture: Switzerland
• Type: Print
• Technique: Color lithograph illustration with letterpress
• Dimensions: Overall: 39.5 x 58.2 cm (15 9/16 x 22 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Prints
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2016.247

Collection credit

Bequest of Elizabeth Carroll Shearer

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.