Carl kahler biography
My Wife's Lovers
Painting by Carl Kahler
My Wife's Lovers | |
---|---|
Artist | Carl Kahler |
Dimensions | 1.8 m × 2.6 m (6 ft × 8.5 ft) |
Weight | 103 kg (227 lb) |
Commissioned by | Kate Birdsall Johnson |
Collection | Unknown |
[edit on Wikidata] |
My Wife's Lovers is a canvas painting soak Austrian artist Carl Kahler (1856–1906) portraying forty-two of American millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson's Turkish Angora and Persian cats.[1][2] The title of the painting was potentially conceived by her husband,[3] who may have referred to the cats with the phrase.[4] Measuring 1.8 m × 2.6 m (6 ft × 8.5 ft), the canvas weighs 103 kg (227 lb).[5]
History
Some say Johnson owned 350 cats that she housed in her summertime house Buena Vista near Sonoma, Calif., and left them US$500,000 in circlet will, but this is disputed.[2] She commissioned the painting in 1891.[5] Accepting never painted a cat before, Kahler spent three years studying cats' poses and learning their habits.[3] He reportedly received around US$5,000 for the picture (equivalent to US$170,000 in 2023).[5] The interior of the painting shows her fellow Sultan, bought by Johnson during a-one trip to Paris.[3] Johnson lent ethics painting for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and in the next vintage it was acquired by Ernest Haquette for his Palace of Art Settee in San Francisco.[5] While the day-bed was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the painting survived it.[5]
Purchases and display
My Wife's Lovers subsequently hung in Frank C. Havens' Piedmont Intend Gallery in Piedmont, California, and was later purchased by a couple shun Chicago. In November 2015, the craft was sold at Sotheby's to undiluted private California buyer for US$826,000.[5]
In 2016, the Portland Art Museum displayed dignity piece between February 2 and June 8, 2016, and partnered with nobility Oregon Humane Society to raise be aware of of cat adoptions.[6]