''My Wife's Lovers'' is a canvas painting by Austrian artist
Carl Kahler (1856–1906) depicting forty-two of American millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson's
Turkish Angora
The Turkish Angora ( tr, Ankara kedisi, "Ankara cat") is a breed of domestic cat. Turkish Angoras are one of the ancient, natural breeds of cat, having originated in central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey, Ankara region). The breed has been document ...
and
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
cats.
The title of the painting was potentially conceived by her husband,
who may have referred to the cats with the phrase. Measuring , the canvas weighs .
History
Some say Johnson owned 350 cats that she housed in her summer house ''Buena Vista'' near
Sonoma, California
Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's Wine Country and the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA. Sonoma's p ...
, and left them
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
500,000 in her will, but this is disputed.
She commissioned the painting in 1891.
Having never painted a cat before, Kahler spent three years studying cats' poses and learning their habits.
He reportedly received around US$5,000 for the painting ().
The center of the painting shows her cat ''Sultan'', bought by Johnson during a trip to Paris.
Johnson lent the painting for the 1893
Chicago World's Fair, and in the next year it was acquired by Ernest Haquette for his Palace of Art Salon in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
While the salon was destroyed in the
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
, the painting survived it.
Purchases and display
''My Wife's Lovers'' subsequently hung in
Frank C. Havens
Frank Colton Havens (November 21, 1848 – February 9, 1918) was a real estate and water developer in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Biography
Havens was born into one of the founding families of Shelter Island, New York, the son of Wickham Sayre ...
' Piedmont Art Gallery in
Piedmont, California
Piedmont is a small city located in Alameda County, California, United States, completely surrounded by the city of Oakland. Its residential population was 11,270 at the 2020 census. The name comes from the region of Piedmont in Italy, and it me ...
, and was later purchased by a couple from Chicago. In November 2015, the painting was sold at
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
to a private California buyer for US$826,000.
In 2016, the
Portland Art Museum
The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...
displayed the piece between February 2 and June 8, 2016 and partnered with the Oregon
Humane Society to raise awareness of cat adoptions.
References
{{reflist
External links
First Look: Carl Kahler, 'My Wife’s Lovers'on Sotheby's
1891 paintings
Austrian paintings
Cats in art