The Cat's Concert

Coryn Boel after David Teniers the Younger

National Gallery of Art

Printed in black and gray tones against cream-white paper, three cats, three kittens, two monkeys, and an owl gather on and around a dining table in this horizontal etching and engraving. A round-topped table is covered by a white cloth at the center of the composition. The pedestal-style legs have feet carved to look like sleepy fish. Three cats and three smaller kittens sit on the table and presumably sing, their mouths open, around a music book. An owl with brushy, feathery brows perches on the top of the book, which is propped up on the table. A seventh cat peers through a rectangular opening in the wall to our left, looking down on the scene. Two monkeys hunch together in the lower right corner. One wears a floppy cap with a feather, the other a hooded robe, and that second one plays a horn instrument. Two lutes, a bagpipe, and another horn instrument are clustered in the lower right corner of the sheet around a book titled “TENOR.” Text inscribed in the plate near the lower left corner reads, “D Teniers In et excud. cum privilegio” and one to the right reads, “Cory Boel. f.”