The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has opened an exhibition titled "Paws on Parchment," exploring the depiction of cats in medieval manuscripts from Europe, Asia, and the Islamic world. The show was inspired by a 15th-century Flemish manuscript that still bears the inky paw prints of a cat that walked across the pages while they were drying. Curator Lynley Anne Herbert assembled the exhibition after discovering the manuscript in the museum's collection, researching medieval poetry, bestiaries, and encyclopedic works to understand historical attitudes toward cats. The exhibition runs through February 22, 2026, and is the first of three shows dedicated to animals in art.
The exhibition matters because it bridges centuries of human-animal relationships, revealing that medieval people loved their cats as much as modern owners do, though for practical reasons like rodent control. It also highlights how cats in medieval art carried symbolic meanings—from representing the devil toying with sinners to reinforcing social order through whimsical images of cats playing instruments. By connecting these historical depictions to contemporary cat memes and internet culture, the show makes medieval art accessible and relatable, while also offering scholarly insight into the complex roles animals played in medieval life and thought.