World?s largest cat painting

A massive 102 kg  painting, believed to be the "world's largest cat painting," was recently bought at a Sotheby's auction in New York for R8.5 million

The piece featuring 42 cats on a 1.8 x 2.5 canvas was "so large and so heavy" that carpenters had to make a special wall reinforced with plywood because when it was put up on a normal wall, "it pulled the nails right out," Polly Sartori, Sotheby's head of 19th-century European art, told ABC News today.

But even more incredible than the painting's size and premium price is the story behind it

The painting was commissioned in 1891 by San Francisco millionaire Kate Birdsall Johnson, who owned 350 cats in her 3,000-acre summer residence, according to the Sotheby's catalog

The 350 fancy Persians and Angoras were attended to by a "troop of servants," and "entertained by parrots and cockatoos," Sotheby's wrote. Each cat had a name and recognized that name when called, the auction house added.

Johnson's husband jokingly referred to the work as "My Wife's Lovers." The name stuck.

Story off lonelyplanet.com