Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

sheet in the British Museum which shows two variants
of the Madonna del Gatto motive. In one the boy is
sitting in front of his mother, hugging the curled-up cat
like a dear friend and playfellow. Smiling, and with
beaming face, the mother looks upon the two friends.
With one hand she seems to be admonishing the cat to
keep quiet; with the other arm she embraces the child,
so that the whole group is given a uniform, continuous
contour. The idyll is unbroken and complete.
Below, on the same sheet, the boy is represented at his
mother’s breast, but keeping hold of his feline friend
who bends its back complacently, and sniffs at the Vir-
gin’s breast. In this clrawing, Mary’s type is more mon-
umental than in earlier drawings, and reminds one of a
Greek youth. Had she not the child at her breast, we
should hardly guess her to represent the Holy Virgin.
In some special stuclies, Leonardo has varied still further
the boy and the cat motive, interlacing and grouping
them so that their undulating contours pass entirely
into one another. The rapidly changing movements,
both in the child and in the cat, the endlessly soft play
of the lines at once so clear and so intricate, the curious
natural affinity between the two little figures, have
evidently exerted a powerful fascination on the artist’s
fancy, impelling him to fashion the same motive over
and over again. It is easy to see that the boy still
belongs to the same type as Verrocchio’s lively bronze
child with the dolphin. He has the same big head, with
a tuft of hair on the foreheacl, the same cheery snub-
nose, dimpled cheeks and smiling mouth; but he is softer
and suppler, and altogether more animated than his
predecessor. Something of the nature and movements
of the cat has been ahnost individualized as a child.

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