Catalogue entry
With his portraitist’s eye, which leaves nothing to chance, Philippe Smit paints his cat with a fixed and luminous gaze, in a hieratic pose, with his clasped legs surrounded by his tail. Deprived of a natural setting, the cat is portrayed life-sized on a blue background, a Balinese fabric with a golden border. Rather than seeking to render the effect that the cat’s appearance can have on the viewer, Smit is more concerned with the psychology of the feline.
This cat answered to the Dutch first name Klaas, derived from Nikolaas, to which the suffix "je" adds an affectionate diminutive.
René Massé, a friend of the artist, reported in December 1931 the presence of this "gorgeous black-striped cat, which is one year old" 1 in the studio at Thoury-Ferrottes2. This is the only known observation of this pet.
Apart from a few occasional and anecdotal representations of real or fantasized creatures, the genre of animal art does not occupy a place in Smit's work. We can consider that the choice to represent Klaasje as the sole subject of this painting was only dictated by the great affection and fascination that the animal exerted on the artist.
1. Massé 1920-1935, 13 December 1931, p. [18].
2. See [PS 323].