CARL KAHLER (AUSTRIAN 1855-1906)
Study for My Wife`s Lovers, circa 1891
oil on canvas
64.2 x 51.7 cm (25 1/4 x 20 3/8 in.)
signed lower right

LOT NOTES
In 1891, the American millionaire and cat enthusiast Kate Birdsall Johnson approached Carl Kahler with a commission to paint a group portrait of her feline companions, jokingly nicknamed My Wife`s Lovers by her husband. Having established himself as a portraitist and a painter of horses, this seemed like a natural connection for Kahler, but as he lacked experience painting cats the artist spent much of the next three years creating studies of the animals he would eventually feature in the monumental painting (which recently sold at Sotheby`s for $826,000 and is now on display at the Portland Art Museum. The completed painting, featuring forty-two of Johnson`s beloved felines caused a sensation at the 1893 Chicago World`s Fair and was eventually acquired by Ernest Haquette, who kept the painting on display at the San Francisco Palace of Art Salon. In 1906, the Salon as well as more than 3,000 people, including the artist, perished in the devastating earthquake, while My Wife`s Lovers, and this study, survived. In the study offered here, the meowing kitten depicted in this composition can be seen just off-center, to the left of Johnson`s centrally poised prized cat Sultan, and directing his attention to the white reclining Angora cat (whose head is depicted in a slightly different position in the present lot), named His Highness.