British art historian Bendor Grosvenor might be reconsidering his choice of a pet right now. Grosvenor, an art historian and writer who has appeared on the BBC series Britain’s Lost Masterpieces and Fake or Fortune? was recently repairing two small tears on a 17th-century painting by John Michael Wright (1617-1694) from his own collection. He bought the painting for $6,680 in 2015. Grosvenor stepped back to admire his repairs and at that moment, his cat Padme decided to pounce on the center of the canvas. “Disaster,” said Grosvenor. The force of the claws and the landing created a large hole in the painting’s center. The repair cost will be equal to the painting’s whole value. Grosvenor’s sense of humor, however, appears to be intact. Padme is “not a fan of John Michael Wright, and regrets nothing,” said Grosvenor.
Photo: Ishbel Grosvenor / Source: www.mnn.com
My house is full of antiques of all sorts. Furniture, figurines, china, teapots, anything I see that I like and tickles my fancy. It comes home. We have a chubby cat, China Doll, my sons cat, who lazes around all day, usually sleeping on whatever craft I’m working on.
Whiskers, is a tiny little cat, who follows and meows constantly at my husband like a wife. Even if he goes to the rest room, she pushed open the door and talks to him the whole time. She’s always on his lap.
My cat, Ashes, was feral. She likes to climb, everything and knock down anything that gets in her way. She pushed several figurines down to make a sleeping place, but can tiptoe through them on several surface levels to get there. She’s my acrobat.
KeeKee the Kollectible Kitty (see my youtube video) was pulled out of the slush from the middle of a country road when he was just a tiny kitten. He was so sick and weak he could barely lift his head up to look at me and only managed a tiny pathetic ‘meow’ as I quickly grabbed him and stuffed him under my shirt in an effort to warm him up as I rushed him straight to the vet. I nursed him back to health and he grew up to be a handsome 15 pound tom. He lived in and became the well known mascot of my brick and mortar antique store in Osseo, Wisconsin. He had great balance and dexterity and learned to negotiate the maze of breakables in my store with nonchalant aplomb. I gave him free rein in the store, allowing him to roam wherever he wanted and rarely had to clean up a mess from his having knocked something down in his travels. He had one penchant, and that was deliberately knocking my diet coke bottle from whatever convenient perch I had given it.
KeeKee the Kollectible Kitty (see my youtube video) was pulled out of the slush from the middle of a country road when he was just a tiny kitten. He was so sick and weak he could barely lift his head up to look at me and only managed a tiny pathetic ‘meow’ as I quickly grabbed him and stuffed him under my shirt in an effort to warm him up as I rushed him straight to the vet. I nursed him back to health and he grew up to be a handsome 15 pound tom. He lived in and became the well known mascot of my brick and mortar antique store in Osseo, Wisconsin. He had great balance and dexterity and learned to negotiate the maze of breakables in my store with nonchalant aplomb. I gave him free rein in the store, allowing him to roam wherever he wanted and rarely had to clean up a mess from his having knocked something down in his travels. He had one penchant, and that was deliberately knocking my diet coke bottle from whatever convenient perch I had given it.
For years, I had a few pieces of statuary on top of a very tall china cabinet. They were not especially valuable, but had picked them up in Italy ages ago.
For some reason, my fat cat decided to perch up there one day. When she saw me coming, she scrambled to get down and in the process knocked down all three pieces….hitting antique furniture, railings, etc. as they crashed.
I was not happy. Legs and arms were broken. Heads decapitated. But I couldn’t replace them, so glued them back together. Callie has been gone 10 years and I still laugh at her frantic rush, my glue efforts, and the knicks in the railing with love.
Before I had a china closet I displayed my great-grandmother’s ruby glass on a shelf. I don’t know if it was the height of the shelf or the brilliant color of the glass but my cat Claude dePussy jumped up and knocked it off the shelf. The glass shattered and that was the end of that.
Same thing happened to the screen on my sliding door last fall. Exact same color cat but his gray spot is on his chin and his name is Ken. He led us a merry chase for about an hour and then walked in the door demanding his dinner…
I love cats but every black and white cat I know is a biter!
With one you are only warming up – I have seven
expect a few broken items.