Pam’s Pictorama Post: For those of you who read yesterday’s post, you know that this little kitty came to me from Great Britain via an Instagram post where I spotted him in a flea market display. It was the first time I purchased something from @woodenhillstoys via Instagram, but I deeply suspect not the last. He caught my eye at the same time as the Louis Wain doily (yesterday’s post), on a shelf on the same table.

This kitty is tiny, only about four inches from his nose to his curled up tail. He is velvet and sports a ratty ribbon, the same yellowish color as the velvet on his tummy. A red nose and mouth are a stitched star between glass ears with rounded ears. Still, it is his sort of splayed leg stance, arched back and curled tail that catch your eye and give him his cat-titude. A tiny hole in the tip of his tail reveals a bit of straw stuffing. He is a prime example of less is more.

Meanwhile, in the process of the sale, the seller Steven Phillips (@woodenhilltoys) shared a rather extraordinary piece he recently acquired for his own collection. For those of you who are regular Pictorama readers you may remember several posts devoted to animal imitators – dogs and, of course, cats. (Some of those prior Pictorama posts can be found here, here and here.) While I wouldn’t say that the Brits owned this occupation, they are definitely in competition with the us in this narrow area of expertise and this is a grand example.

I just about fell over! Shown here in a glorious poster size in his cat suit with a small image of him, sans suit up in the corner. I pulled this off of Instagram where he direct messaged it to me. I love that he has himself perched on this illustration of a rooftop with neatly tended fields in the distance. The cat costume is notably comical. A note in the corner says, Elite Photo Co., Glasgow, Scotland.

A Google Image search tells me that this gent in his cat suit was in ads for Black Cat Cigarettes and I have grabbed a few images shown here. (One is a Getty Image with its watermark.) I cannot seem to get the name of the performer in question. Clearly he is a rather inspired imitator and his devotion did not go unrecognized.

Black Cat Cigarettes, it goes almost without saying, had a long and storied series of ad campaigns featuring black cats – both real, drawn and clearly imitated as well. (For a post highlighting a notable item of their advertising in my collection have a read here.)

So a real hats off to Steven Phillips (and my thanks for allowing me to share the images) for a real hotsy totsy find! I have a feeling this won’t be the last we hear about the lore of this particular cat impersonator and we at Pictorama will be looking.