Louis Wain Fact #76:
Prince, a black Persian, was seemingly a cherished possession of the Shah of Persia and was taken from the palace by a servant who had been bribed with the sum of £100 by an American lady. The cat was then declared to be lost, before the truth leaked out, and the servant was allegedly beheaded. He was then given to Wain by his American owners for some unknown good deed.
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The Eight 'Kaleidoscope' pictures on load from the Bethlem Royal Hospital, catalogued by Patricia Allderidge.
General note: These pictures have been shown together in one amount for many years and were presumably arranged like this by Dr Maclay. Although it is known that he found 'some' pictures by Louis Wain in a shop in Camden Hill it is not certain how many of these were included, and nothing is known of their origin or when any of them were painted. The order in which they are seen here is entirely artificial.
100. CAT IN PROFILE
Coloured pencil on paper
8 7/8" x 6 7/8"
The lightly sketched background of leaves seems to have more in common with a picture such as *The Cup that Cheers*, illustrated on the cover of Michael Parkin's *Louis Wain's Cats* and dated by him to c.1912, than with the 'wallpaper' designs of the Napsbury period.