Boy with Cat

It was impossible to identify this unsigned sheet depicting a laughing boy with a cat in the printed lists or databases of the graphic collections. The boy’s face resembles the Laughing Boys after Frans Hals, which is on display, and the cat under his shirt is reminiscent of the Cat with a Stolen Fish attributed to Vaillant. The theme of laughing children (who sometimes also held a cat) was popular in 17th-century Dutch painting, especially in the work of Frans Hals or his pupil Judith Leyster.