Do you like this piece of machine embroidered seersucker cloth from the TRC collection (TRC 2020.1709), with a dancing cat and another moggie playing a cello? It is a 20th century piece of cloth from Europe, and very appropriate for today: International Cat Day!

A piece of embroidered seersucker cloth with two cats. Europe, 20th century (TRC 2020.1709).

The feline importance of today may have escaped you. To be honest, I forgot as well, but today's entry in DailyArt (marvellous daily mailing!) pushed me to have a look in the catalogue of the TRC collection and try and find illustrations of cats. Well, among the nearly 40,000 objects, most of them with photographs, that search proved to be very easy and successful.

Apart from the cloth of seersucker material, I found a beautiful segment of a Chinese panel (TRC 2019.2338), early 20th century, with embroidered poems, and with a central section that shows a cat catching and eating butterflies. How cute; or not, if you like butterflies.

Detail of an early 20th century embroidered Chinese panel with a cat catching and eating butterflies (TRC 2019.2338).

And then there is this charming postcard from c. 1950, also in the TRC collection, showing a young Dutch boy from the island of Marken, in regional dress, holding a cat (TRC 2018.0464).

Postcard, c. 1950, from the Dutch island of Marken, with a boy holding a cat (TRC 2018.0464).

And what do you think of this card (TRC 2020.4314)? It is another early 20th century postcard showing an elderly lady with a horizontal spinning wheel, and with a cat on her lap. Isn't this how we all like our cats to be?

Early 20th century postcard showing an elderly woman with a cat on her lap sitting next to a horizontal spinning wheel. There is a large niddy-noddy on the floor beside her (TRC 2020.4314).

 Willem Vogelsang, 8 August 2022