Kittens in a Basket Painting Wallpaper

This kittens in a basket painting wallpaper by French artist Léon Charles Huber — one of the 19th century’s most charming painters of cats and domestic animal scenes. The cast of three has divided responsibilities: the black-and-white kitten is tumbling headfirst out the top, the blue-eyed white kitten hangs dramatically over the front rim, and the grey tabby surveys the chaos from the left with the expression of someone who knew this would happen. An “Express Paris” courier label on the basket suggests this shipment was not what the recipient ordered. Huber was part of the French animalier tradition — painters who devoted themselves to animals with the same seriousness as portrait painters gave their sitters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European paintings collection spans this entire era of French academic and genre painting.