Cat with Kittens
Description
Object Label: Although precious few Egyptian works of art, including individual figures or their faces, are perfectly symmetrical, three-dimensional groupings of figures are seldom as asymmetrical as this composition. The cat is the goddess Bastet, who could also be shown in leonine form. For more on Bastet and other "lioness-cat" goddesses, see the installations in Temples, Tombs, and the Egyptian Universe. Caption: Cat with Kittens, ca. 664–30 B.C.E. or later. Bronze, wood, 2 3/8 x 3 7/16 x 1 15/16 in. (6.1 x 8.8 x 5 cm) Base: 1 x 3 3/16 x 4 1/16 in. (2.6 x 8.1 x 10.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.406Ea-b. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A cat laying down with several small figures beside it.
The artifact is a bronze sculpture depicting a cat in a reclined position, accompanied by a series of small mouse-like figures aligned beside it. The style suggests a detailed and careful representation, common in Egyptian animal figurines. The notable feature is the juxtaposition of the cat and mice, symbolically significant or playful.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.406Ea-b tier-2
- BKM-Object 4036 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.