title: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Metropolitan Cats (Paintings, Sculpture, Prints, Drawings, Book Illustrations, Needlework, Lacquers, and Ceramics)
author: John P. O'Neill
description: Beautiful oversized hardcover. The cats of the Metropolitan Museum of Art speak for themselves, proudly displaying their dominance over their human companions through fifty centuries of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, book illustrations, needlework, lacquers, and ceramics. From th temples of ancient Egypt to the sidewalks of nineteenth-century Paris, from Chinese gardens to medieval kitchens, these independent, devious, curious, and lovable creatures make their own statements about their wishes and desires. Showing cats in all sizes, shapes and colors, and as cuddly kittens, hieratic images, and hunters on the prowl. Metropolitan Cats proves that artists have recognized what every cat lover knows: that cats are the most remarkable and endlessly interesting creatures of all. Illustrated throughout with beautiful color plates of cats in art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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  In memory of Mallory G. B. H. Kean  
   _I hear you laughing still_
  
  Private Vices by the dextrous Management of a skillful Politician may be
  turned into Publick Benefits.
  
  BERNARD MANDEVILLE, _The Fable of the Bees_
  
   **Contents**
  
   _Leaders of the Metropolitan Museum_
  
   _Introduction_
  
   _Archaeologist: Luigi Palma di Cesnola, 1870–1904_
  
   _Capitalist: J. Pierpont Morgan, 1904–1912_
  
   _Philanthropist: John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1912–1938_
  
   _Catalyst: Robert Moses, 1938–1960_
  
   _Exhibitionist: Thomas P. F. Hoving, 1959–1977_
  
   _Arrivistes: Jane and Annette Engelhard, 1974–2009_
  
   _Afterword_
  
   _Acknowledgments_
  
   _Notes_
  
   _Bibliography_
  
   **Leaders of the Metropolitan Museum**
  
  DIRECTORS
  
  Luigi Palma di Cesnola, 1879–1904  
  Caspar Purdon Clarke, 1905–1910  
  Edward Robinson, 1910–1931  
  Herbert Winlock, 1932–1939  
  Francis Henry Taylor, 1940–1955  
  James Rorimer, 1955–1966  
  Thomas Hoving, 1967–1977  
  Philippe de Montebello, 1977–2008  
  Thomas P. Campbell, 200