{"id":799,"date":"2011-03-04T14:08:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T19:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/?p=799"},"modified":"2011-03-04T14:28:13","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T19:28:13","slug":"a-cat-amongst-the-dickinsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/2011\/03\/04\/a-cat-amongst-the-dickinsons\/","title":{"rendered":"A cat amongst the Dickinsons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/Vinnies-cat.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-803  aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/Vinnies-cat-300x135.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"135\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/Vinnies-cat-300x135.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/Vinnies-cat.jpg 440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/libraries\/houghton\/collections\/modern\/dickinson.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">Houghton Library\u2019s Dickinson Collection<\/a> holds one of only two authenticated portraits of Emily Dickinson: the 1840 Otis Allen Bullard portrait of the three Dickinson children. Ten-year-old Emily is depicted holding a rose and a book illustrated with flowers, indicating her early interest in gardening and nature; Lavinia holds a drawing of a cat (unlike her older sister, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org\/carlo\" target=\"_blank\">who preferred dogs<\/a>, Lavinia was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org\/lavinia_dickinson\" target=\"_blank\">lifelong cat lover<\/a>).\u00a0 That cat, however, has always been difficult to see, as it was partially obscured by the painting\u2019s frame.<\/p>\n<p>A need to reprint the <a href=\"http:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/libraries\/houghton\/public_programs\/card_sales.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">Houghton postcard<\/a> of this iconic image led to a decision to re-photograph the portrait without its frame, in order to see the entirety of the canvas.\u00a0 The back of the painting was also photographed.\u00a0 The digital photography was done in the Harvard College Library <a href=\"http:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/info\/imaging\/\" target=\"_blank\">Imaging Services studio<\/a>.\u00a0 The color reproduction is more faithful to the original than in the older (scanned) color transparency; and indeed one now sees the seven-year-old Lavinia\u2019s beloved cat more clearly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ids.lib.harvard.edu\/ids\/view\/23152304?buttons=y\">http:\/\/ids.lib.harvard.edu\/ids\/view\/23152304?buttons=y<\/a> [front]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ids.lib.harvard.edu\/ids\/view\/23152305?buttons=y\">http:\/\/ids.lib.harvard.edu\/ids\/view\/23152305?buttons=y<\/a> [back]<a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/23152304.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/23152304.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-802 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/files\/2011\/03\/23152304.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"337\" height=\"402\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The portrait of the Dickinson children is on display in the Houghton Library Emily Dickinson Room, which can be visited during Houghton&#8217;s <a href=\"\/\/hcl.harvard.edu\/info\/tours\/index.cfm#houghton\" target=\"_blank\">weekly tours<\/a>. Reproduction of Bullard&#8217;s portrait requires the <a href=\"https:\/\/hcl.harvard.edu:8001\/forms\/requests\/permissions.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">department&#8217;s permission<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Houghton Library\u2019s Dickinson Collection holds one of only two authenticated portraits of Emily Dickinson: the 1840 Otis Allen Bullard portrait of the three Dickinson children. Ten-year-old Emily is depicted holding a rose and a book illustrated with flowers, indicating her early interest in gardening and nature; Lavinia holds a drawing of a cat (unlike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5TUly-cT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/houghtonmodern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}