Pre-Raphaelite Cats

Susan Herbert’s delightful renditions of pre-Raphaelite paintings with cats in the starring roles

The Beggar Maid, more beautiful than day in Tennysons poem, takes on a particularly touching relationship with King Cophetua, while Medea gives new meaning to the word enchantress as she prepares the ingredients for a spell.Susan Herbert’s feline versions of famous paintings have delighted cat and art-lovers everywhere. In this book, now available in paperback, she turns her eye to the works of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, whose popularity is reaching new heights today. The epitome of their style and period, these wonderful paintings can be viewed in a new and entrancing way when their protagonists are endearing cats. The Beggar Maid, ‘more beautiful than day’ in Tennyson’s poem, takes on a particularly touching relationship with King Cophetua, while Medea gives new meaning to the word enchantress as she prepares the ingredients for a spell. And were ever two creatures so frightened and so abandoned as the poor cat princes wickedly imprisoned in the Tower, or two lovers so sad and so stoical as the young officer cat and his fiancée on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo? A special feature of this book is its inclusion of small black-and-white reproductions of all the original paintings that have inspired Susan Herbert. Once again she has risen to the challenge of endowing the world’s best- loved works of art with a certain feline charm.