Woman With Cat 

Boris Grigoriev painted "Woman With Cat" with oil on canvas sometime in the early 20th century. Grigoriev made his name painting Russian peasants but spent much of his life in Paris. Here, we see a portrait that seems to belong to a longer European tradition. The woman’s dress, hair, and jewelry are understated, and her indoor domestic setting gives us a glimpse into the values of a certain class of Parisian society. The cat, a Siamese, is an interesting addition. Cats are often stand-ins for feminine wiles, but here, the cat, with its penetrating gaze, seems to mirror the woman's. She meets our gaze, making us, the viewer, complicit in the act of looking. As historians, we can ask, what does this painting tell us about the relationship between women, animals, and domesticity? By researching the artist and the culture in which this work was made, we can start to consider its social context.