Candelabra Grotesque with a Cat 1540 - 1560

Andrés de Melgar rendered this pen and ink drawing, "Candelabra Grotesque with a Cat," sometime in the late 16th century. The grotesque style, revived during the Renaissance, blends human and animal forms with architectural motifs, often evoking a sense of playful yet unsettling ambiguity. Here, the cat perched atop the structure is particularly striking. The cat, a creature of duality—domestic yet wild—has long been associated with both good and ill fortune, embodying notions of independence, cunning, and mystery. We can trace similar composite figures back to ancient Roman art, where such hybrids adorned walls, embodying a fascination with metamorphosis and the blurring of boundaries. In medieval bestiaries, the cat often appears with ambivalent symbolism. This image reveals how such motifs persist, transformed yet resonant, engaging our subconscious with primal, archetypal forces that echo through the corridors of time.