Lot 146: MARTIN FERDINAND QUADAL

MARTIN FERDINAND QUADAL NIEMTSCHITZ, MORAVIA 1736 - 1808 ST PETERSBURG A STILL LIFE WITH A CAT EXAMINING TWO FISH ON A TABLE AND A CAT EXPLORING AN EARTHENWARE BOWL; A STILL LIFE OF A BOOK WITH A CAT CROUCHING OVER A GLASS GOLDFISH BOWL Quantity: 2 the former signed lower left: M.F. Quadal. F. a pair, both oil on canvas the former: 63 by 74.5 cm.; 24 3/4 by 29 1/4 in. the latter: 69.5 by 76.3 cm.; 27 3/8 by 30 in.

Quadal was a Moravian painter who was itinerant throughout Europe and spent the 1770's in England. Thomas Gray's famous 1747 ode on the death of Horace Walpole's cat related how she had fallen "into a China Tub with Gold-Fishes in it and was drown'd". Quadal is known to have painted the same subject on at least one other occasion, see that sold in these Rooms, 2 March 1983, lot 66.