Three cats performing a song and dance act
Details
The story
Three cats in top hats, suits and waistcoats perform on a green lawn, one with a cane and one with an umbrella. Their costume comes from the music hall, London's popular variety theatre, where the "swell", a man about town in top hat and tails, sang about champagne and the high life. Wain was a boy in London in the years when that act filled the halls.
The Wellcome Collection calls the sheet a song and dance act and can date it only to between 1925 and 1939, when Wain was living in hospital. It is a small gouache, under 23 centimetres wide, and it carries his full signature, Louis Wain.
