Cat and Mouse
Description
Object Label: Animals imitating human behavior were well-known in Egyptian art. Yet their meaning is uncertain. Here, a feline funerary priest approaches a mouse with offerings. The mouse wears a lotus flower on its head, sits on a chair, sniffs a flower, and holds out a cup to be filled. The cat, standing on his hind legs, fans the mouse and offers a roasted duck and a piece of linen. People performing these actions in Egyptian art are usually at a banquet. A cat serving a mouse might represent a humorous satire or illustrate a now-lost story. Caption: Cat and Mouse, ca. 1295–1075 B.C.E.. Limestone, ink, 3 1/2 x 6 13/16 x 7/16 in. (8.9 x 17.3 x 1.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.51E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth, photographer))
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 drawing of two anthropomorphic figures interacting, possibly deities.
The artifact is a piece of limestone featuring a sketch of two anthropomorphic figures, one of which has a feline head and the other possibly a rodent or hippo head. They appear to be interacting, with one offering a large flower to the other, who is seated. The style is simple line drawing, indicative of an informal or practice piece such as an ostracon.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.51E tier-2
- BKM-Object 3952 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.