A Brief History Of Cats Being Worshipped (They Remember)
From Egyptian temples to Victorian drawing rooms, cats have been managing humans for millennia.
Cats did not so much become domesticated as accept an offer. Grain stores drew mice, mice drew cats, and cats decided the arrangement suited them.
Egypt: the golden age
In ancient Egypt cats were associated with the goddess Bastet, kept in households, and sometimes mummified and buried with great care. Your cat has not forgotten this period and refers to it often.
Ships, sailors and the working cat
Cats earned passage across the world by keeping ships free of rodents. This is why the domestic cat is now one of the most widely distributed mammals on earth — a global career built entirely on freelance pest control.
The Victorians and the painted pet
By the nineteenth century, pets appeared in formal portraiture and cat shows drew genuine crowds. The velvet, the brass buttons, the unbothered gaze: the Victorians understood that a cat in a frame is simply a cat in his natural habitat.
Which, some centuries later, is roughly how this studio came to exist.