Carl Kahler's My Wife's Lovers sells for $826,000
Carl Kahler’s My Wife’s Lovers (1891) has sold for $826,000 at Sotheby’s New York.
It led a sale of 19th century European art.
Californian millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson commissioned the Austrian-born Kahler to paint the work, which features 42 of her 350 cats.
The enormous work measures two and a half metres across.
Johnson employed a team of servants to look after her cats. The title of the work was suggested by her husband, the long-suffering Mr Johnson.
It was described by Cat Magazine in 1949 as “the world’s greatest painting of cats”.
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