Chatte Emaillore

Image Coming Soon

Chatte Emaillore

1962, 1964

American, 1903-1972

"In this collage Joseph Cornell places the images of a young girl from an early eighteenth-century French painting in curious circumstances. Kittens emerge from her skirts as she peers over a miniaturized building in the lower left. The center of the composition is marked by a mysterious circular stain. Here Cornell painted a moustache on this photostat, just as noted surrealist Marcel Duchamp painted a moustache on the 'Mona Lisa.' With this slight addition Cornell gives the girl's formal pose a jarring incongruity.
It is titled 'Chatte Emaillore,' which roughly translates from the French as 'enamelled female cat.' The piece is a form of poetic juxtaposition. While Cornell most likely had something in mind, the piece functions like an ink blot text where the viewer can make up their own story from a mysterious set of clues.
Cornell was fascinated by many aspects of art, culture and history. Particular visual themes emerged throughout his box construction and collage works. References to childhood also held particular charm for the artist. Dolls, small toys, and diminutive objects, which the artist purchased in souvenir shops and drugstores, are associated with his modestly scaled works.
Towards the end of his career, Cornell shifted his attention from his box works and almost exclusively made collages such as this. This shift may be due to the changing nature of mass media and an ever-increasing stream of magazine images from which the artist culled his material, as well as his diminshed physical strength."

Collage

Frame h.: 13 1/4 in.

Frame w.: 11 1/4 in.

Gift of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation

93.114

Not currently on view

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM