Catnip

From The Metropolitan Museum of Art's vast holdings comes this charming collection of fine art felines. Cats of all types provide the artistic mews for the gallery of images presented here, all perfectly paired with quips about cats from some of our most famous writers, thinkers, and humorists, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, and Gertrude Stein. The face of a cat superimposed on an artists self-portrait is accompanied by Mark Twain's dry wit: "If man could be crossed with a cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat." Cats have been captivating artists and thinkers for centuries, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this heartwarming homage—from an ancient Egyptian statue of a cat, to a medieval illumination of a tiny cat sharpening its claws on the manuscript, to a Japanese painting of a cat patiently stalking a spider. This gift of a book, filled with the most exquisite portraits of cats doing what they do best, is guaranteed to enchant.