Chain of Command

This remarkable painting apparently hangs on a hotel wall in New Orleans. Anyone know anything else about it?

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Anonymous

Wow, it’s similar to a painting my parents own. My father was the long time chief of engineering at a South Mississippi veteran’s hospital and from what I remember the painting I’m referring to was done by a patient.
Robert

I clearly have a faulty bear-detector. At first I thought, “Bear? What are these guys on? It’s a cat!” And then I saw chgoliz’s suggestion to enlarge the close-up in this link, and I thought, “That’s still a cat! On a leash!” Then I finally saw the elongated nose.

It’s a freaking bear cub.
in1ove

title is intriguing. while i’m almost certain that the “chain” starts at the cat and ends with the slave, the chain of dependence (in reverse order) is also imminent. a day without a mexican, anyone?
Anonymous

A cat, a white master and his black slave. Why take a cat and not a dog? The master is in deep thought. Something heavy is weighing on those shoulders. The dark silhouette of the cat and the mist rising from the swamp invoked an atmosphere of weird mystery.
Only the side glance from the black paddler brought us back to humanly business.
OtiGoji

The upper left corner… the color yellow makes me sad.
benher

…and that’s how the brave white man FINALLY threw off the shackles of his feline oppressors! (with a little help from his trusty black sidekick of course! That’s the part they leave out of the history books!)
Anonymous

The profile looks almost as much liken an owl as a cat.
Halloween Jack

Basement Cat Crossing the Delaware by Dudley Throppingforth IV.
DJBudSonic

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As a regular reader and somewhat irregular commenter, I want to know if there is anything I can do to help keep the trash off the street, as it were. Besides flagging the offensive comments.

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- Rob Beschizza
  
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AGC

Most likely Sir George Simpson (1787 â€“ 7 September 1860) from the Hudson Bay Company. He traveled extensively through ‘his’ territory inspecting the fur trade outposts from Vancouver to the Gulf of Mexico.

He liked to wear top hats and never paddled in the canoe. He did however reward people he traveled with if they set a new speed/distance record.

Also he fathered dozens of illegitimate children all throughout his career in N. America, sometimes even with the wives of his employees on threat of them being fired.
JayByrd

I didn’t know they had Photoshop in 1845…
It’s a knock-off of George Caleb Bingham’s “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri.” I ought to know, as I have a print of it on my living room wall.
I’d love to know the history of this version — the Sir George Simpson theory (above) is intriguing.
Most art experts say the animal is a bear cub, but it always looked like a cat to me.
Anonymous

When I saw the picture the first thing that came to mind is John McDonough. He willed his considerable fortune to start public schools in New Orleans for the poor and free blacks. I think this might be a painting of him crossing over the Mississippi from Algiers. But I don’t know for sure.
Jake0748

I heard that it hangs on a hotel wall in New Orleans.
Lucifer

That river’s gonna cause some problems. A black cat is crossing it… You said New Orleans?
Anonymous

So I think I might be justified in my guess of this being John McDonough. Here is a link to another blog discussing this painting and its connection to the famous one already linked to. Scroll down to April 29, 2009.

http://sites.lafayette.edu/specialcollections/

And of course wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDonogh
- chgoliz
  
  From your Lafayette College link:
  
  [quote]John McDonogh was well known in the city of New Orleans for being tightfisted. The painting in the collage is a rendition after a similar one that can be found at the Met. This particular rendition depicts John McDonogh crossing the Mississippi on a small row boat so he could avoid the ferry fee. It can be viewed at the hotel Le Richelau in New Orleansâ€™ French Quarter. Needless to say, the public was thoroughly astounded when they heard how much of his estate McDonogh had given to the public education system. In due time, they began to appreciate the man they had once loved to demonize.[/quote]
  
  That seems to be the final word on the subject.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Do I have to come to your house and beat you with the html stick?
    - chgoliz
      
      Honestly, I think you do!
      
      This thread is definitely the worst I’ve ever mangled.
      
      *hangs head in shame*
Anonymous

I don’t know, but I’m in New Orleans and can verify if anyone has any hypotheses.
bluereed

Hey, what a coincidence. I stayed at the Richelieu last week and was mesmerized by the painting.
Anonymous

http://alittlebrownblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/fur-traders-and-carmella-descending.html looks familiar.
Anonymous

Part of a George Bingham series?
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/33.61
- chgoliz
  
  If you enlarge the close-up of the animal in your link (the Descending the Missouri one), it becomes clear that despite the ears and general shape, it is in fact a bear cub, not a cat. The other linked Bingham painting given by other posters is with a dog (Carmella). So: is the Richelieu painting a cat (3rd animal) or in fact the bear cub again? Maybe it’s only the humans who were switched out for this painting.
AlexG

Le Richelieu Hotel it is

http://www.lerichelieuhotel.com/pg_lobby2.html

http://www.lerichelieuhotel.com/photos.html
hhex65

Well, it’s at least a parody of ‘Fur Traders on the Missouri’ by George Bingham.
I can tell by some of the brushstrokes and having seen a lot of paintings.
Anonymous

Rob
It is probably the work of George Caleb Bingham who spent most of his life in Missouri. There is another one very similar to it in New Yorkâ€™s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Very cool, just love old canoe pantings!

Art
http://www.northwestexplorerblog.blogspot.com
Anonymous

@Jake0748 Hilarious!
@Lucifer Hilariouser!
Anonymous

According to this Flickr stream it’s in the Richelieu Hotel in New Orleans
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11689793@N03/4611398753/in/photostream/
Sean Kelly

It’s strangely similar to the corporate logo of the J. River company, purveyors of networking software. See it at http://www.icetcp.com/

The cat and the boat are the same, but the other passengers aren’t. Odd.
AuntBarb

I thought I recognized it as “Fur Traders Descending the Missouri” by George Caleb Bingham, but there is a clear difference.

http://tinyurl.com/2v5a6bz

Perhaps all the fur trappers had the same cat?
Craig Sheldon

It hangs in the lobby of Le Richelieu Hotel, New Orleans – http://www.lerichelieuhotel.com/photos.html ; their website doesn’t appear to give a name though.
Gorgonzola

A tineye search turns up another photograph of it on Flickr, where it’s identified as being in the Richelieu Hotel. The title of the Flickr post is “Elite transportation, with cat, Louisiana”, but I can’t tell if that’s the actual name of the painting or just the name given by the Flickr user.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11689793@N03/4611398753/in/photostream/
Anonymous

I’m heading to the Quarter tomorrow – I’ll pop in at The Richilieu and see what I can find out.
Anonymous

It’s not a Bingham- it’s a direct lift from a very famous Winslow Homer watercolor (I believe it’s called The Fur Traders
here’s the original: http://astro1.panet.utoledo.edu/~lsa/_color/19_furTraders.jpg
Anonymous

It look like a scene of the Godfather III… Region V
ill lich

I think it’s been photo-shopped, I can tell from the brush-strokes.
penguinchris

Really interesting; the “chain of command” title infers a joke; the white slave owner rules the slave, but actually the cats rule.

The links showing the original painting others posted reveal that it’s actually supposed to be a bear – in this version there’s no detail in the animal, but the outline is the same, so it looks like a cat.

It’s got to just be a remake by someone who saw the original and had a weird sense of humor. As far as the quality of the painting goes, the original is a better painting but I do like the hazy surreal colors in this version.
- SonOfSamSeaborn
  
  Maybe the black guy rules the white guy, and all the white guy can rule is a cat. But the cat knows better and really rules the black guy, meaning he rules both the white guy and himself.
  
  The water represents the artist’s desire to sleep with his mother and also the conspiracy behind 9/11.
elliot winner

That does not look like any bear cub I’ve ever seen. And being a cub myself, I should know about these things.
Rob Beschizza

Many thanks.