> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # 18th-Century Odes to a Cat that Drowned in a Goldfish Bowl - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/18th-century-odes-to-a-cat-that-drowned-in-a-goldfish-bowl/ - Published: 2016-04-07T20:05:51.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:42:27.000Z - Description: A cat that fell into a goldfish bowl in 1747 and subsequently drowned from her pyrrhic hunt inspired an unlikely series of artworks in the 18th century. - Author: Allison Meier - Tags: Art, Bonhams, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/bonhamscatode.jpg) Attributed to Martin Ferdinand Quadal, “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes,” oil on canvas (image courtesy Bonhams, which will feature the painting in their April 27th Old Master Paintings auction in London) A cat that fell into a goldfish bowl [in 1747](http://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780198118374.book.1/actrade-9780198118374-div2-3?ref=hyperallergic.com) and subsequently drowned from her pyrrhic hunt inspired an unlikely series of artworks in the 18th century. Selima, as the unfortunate feline was called, was the companion of art historian and author [Horace Walpole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace%5FWalpole?ref=hyperallergic.com), and like any eccentric aristocrat worth his earldom, he asked friend and poet [Thomas Gray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas%5FGray?ref=hyperallergic.com) to pen a tribute. Gray went beyond a simple epitaph and scribed a whole mock [elegy](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173567?ref=hyperallergic.com) for the cat, called “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes.” It begins: > ’Twas on a lofty vase’s side, > Where China’s gayest art had dyed > The azure flowers that blow; > Demurest of the tabby kind, > The pensive Selima, reclined, > Gazed on the lake below. Alas, that gaze, as with poor [Narcissus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus%5F%28mythology%29?ref=hyperallergic.com), would be her downfall. Gray continues with classical pomp, describing the “hapless nymph” entranced by the “angel forms.” Dipping “a whisker first and then a claw, / With many an ardent wish, / She stretched in vain to reach the prize,” until she “tumbled headlong in.” Selima quickly goes through all nine lives, “eight times emerging from the flood,” before her demise, on which Gray offers this moralistic proverb: > From hence, ye beauties, undeceived, > Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved, > And be with caution bold. > Not all that tempts your wandering eyes > And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; > Nor all that glisters, gold. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catdeathvase.jpg) Illustration of the goldfish tub in which the cat drowned (courtesy Strawberry Hill) Walpole apparently wasn’t offended by the satirical loftiness of the poem, and had the first stanza engraved on the pedestal for [the fatal porcelain tub](http://arcade.stanford.edu/blogs/ode-death-favorite-cat-drowned-tub-goldfishes-you-will-excuse-me-if-i-do-not-begin-cry?ref=hyperallergic.com), which remains on view in his [Strawberry Hill House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry%5FHill%5FHouse?ref=hyperallergic.com) in London. But Selima’s role as posthumous muse didn’t stop there. [Stephen Elmer](http://puisipoesy.blogspot.com/2006/07/on-death-of-favourite-cat-drowned-in.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) painted her perched on the bowl, although he changed Gray’s tabby depiction to a tortoiseshell, and the porcelain container to a clear bowl. A [painting](http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23252/lot/200/?ref=hyperallergic.com) attributed to Austrian artist [Martin Ferdinand Quadal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin%5FFerdinand%5FQuadal?ref=hyperallergic.com), is going to auction on April 27 in the [Old Master Paintings auction ](http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23252/?ref=hyperallergic.com)at Bonhams in London, likewise depicting the cat in her last moments above a translucent bowl. In a book before her, Gray’s ominous ode is splayed open. Cat elegies were, oddly, quite popular [in the Enlightenment](http://www.thegreatcat.org/cats-enlightenment-part-5-poems-epitaphs-deceased-cats/?ref=hyperallergic.com), and perhaps got a boost from Gray’s poem (he only published about [14 works in his lifetime](http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/engl201/gray.htm?ref=hyperallergic.com), but the cat eulogy, initially published anonymously [in 1748,](http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/ode-death-favourite-cat-drowned-tub-goldfishes?ref=hyperallergic.com) was a hit). Here’s the beginning of one cat tribute from 1769 in [*The Gentleman’s Magazine*](https://books.google.com/books?id=s6c3AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=Here+lies+beneath+this+verdant+hill.+Tom,+a+favorite+cat&source=bl&ots=wicYn%5FrSAy&sig=lB11pQuuZjkxd1Ioo0bY99DMBoU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJnZnjwPrLAhXGHR4KHckEDCQQ6AEIHzAB#v=onepage&q=Here%20lies%20beneath%20this%20verdant%20hill.%20Tom%2C%20a%20favorite%20cat&f=false): “Here lies beneath this verdant hill, / Poor Tom, a favourite cat: / Who, when alive, did never spill / The blood of mouse or rat.” And sometimes they were even from the feline perspective, such as Anna Seward’s 1792 “[An Old Cat’s Dying Soliloquy](https://books.google.com/books?id=2ZoNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA425&lpg=PA425&dq=An+Old+Cat%27s+Dying+Soliloquy&source=bl&ots=E1tMeZxAz7&sig=iSN5BrEUf0f1WfYHSY94-dVSeC4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw04SiwvrLAhXF6x4KHeCVASUQ6AEILTAD#v=onepage&q=An%20Old%20Cat's%20Dying%20Soliloquy&f=false),” in which the cat imagines the “joys that painless realms decree” including “golden fish and wingless bird.” Later [in 1797](http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq?workid=but335&ref=hyperallergic.com), [William Blake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%5FBlake?ref=hyperallergic.com) was commissioned to illustrate Gray’s poems, including “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes.” You can see the illustrations in full below. Like Gray, he imagines the cat as a doomed goddess, her pursuit of her hungers an intended lesson for anyone who attempts to reach for those desires not within our grasp. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake01.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake04.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake02.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake05.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake03.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/04/catwilliamblake06.jpg) William Blake, illustration for "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," in 'The Poems of Thomas Gray (1797-98), watercolor with pen and black ink and graphite on paper with inlaid letterpress page (courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection/Wikimedia)