CAST FROM THE MODEL BY ANTOINE-LOUIS BARYE (1795-1875), LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY

During his final years, Barye kept an Algerian greyhound and a cat in his studio as company. Chat assis is a study of the latter, modelled in or around 1870. Its relaxed pose and serene expression distance this, Barye's only model of a domestic feline, from his significant body of work concentrating on the wilder instincts of the cat family's many members.

COMPERATIVE LITERATURE:
Michel Poletti et Alain Richarme, Barye, catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Paris, 2000, no. A102, p. 242.