Ferdinand van Kessel painted cats holding a concert not as a novelty, but as a specific insult. Concert of Cats — Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

In 17th-century Flemish culture, "katzenmusik" — literally, cat music — was slang for the kind of racket an incompetent ensemble makes. The joke landed differently then. Van Kessel's audience knew exactly who was being mocked. We've mostly forgotten, which means the painting is funnier now and more pointed at the same time.

📖 The Story Behind This Piece

The singerie genre — paintings of animals performing human activities as satire — flourished in Flanders during the late 1600s, and Ferdinand van Kessel worked near its center. In "Concert of Cats," anthropomorphic felines in elaborate costumes hold instruments, read from a score, and perform with the exaggerated gravity of people who take themselves too seriously. The cats are not cute. They're pointed. Every curled paw and stiff posture is borrowed from real concert portraiture of the period, which is where the joke lives.

Van Kessel came from a family of painters known for small-scale naturalistic work, and he turned that precision sideways. Where his father Jan van Kessel the Elder rendered insects and animals with scientific accuracy, Ferdinand used the same draftsmanship to dress them in doublets. The composition for this specific work appeared at Bonhams in London in 2019, attributed to his "Circle," and sold into a private collection. No public museum holds it. The image most people have seen came from auction records.

During assembly, the costumes are where the painting earns its reputation for detail. The fabric folds and lace collars that look flat in a digital thumbnail reveal themselves as distinct puzzle sections with their own tonal logic — warm ochre doublets pulling away from cool grey instrument cases, each requiring you to work the color before the shape. UV printing directly onto the wood surface means the fine linework in the musical score the cats are reading from stays crisp at puzzle scale. 

🎁 Who Gets One of These

A few specific kinds of people end up with this one.

✔️ The art history reader who knows what singerie means — You've encountered Watteau's monkey paintings and David Teniers's tavern apes. Van Kessel is the missing branch of that family tree, and now you can spend a few evenings with the whole composition.
✔️ The person with too many cat things and good taste — Not a novelty buyer. Someone who would frame a Hogarth print but also has three cats. Van Kessel is the 17th-century version of that sensibility.
✔️ The gift-giver who won't do another candle — Specifically for the friend who studied art history, still talks about a semester in Bruges, and has exactly zero wall space they'd waste on something forgettable.
✔️ The puzzle collector who has outgrown cardboard — Someone who has finished a Ravensburger 1000-piece and immediately resented throwing the box away. The wooden keepsake box here goes on a shelf.
✔️ The Flemish painting enthusiast who owns the Sutton book — You know the difference between Jan van Kessel the Elder and the Younger. You've probably looked at this auction attribution more than once. Now you can hold the whole thing in your hands.

Works well as a birthday gift for the art lover who is hard to surprise, a holiday gift for the household that already owns everything, or an anniversary present for the couple that spent a trip in Antwerp or Ghent.

🧩 Puzzle Specifications

✔️ Precision laser-cut wooden pieces
✔️ 3mm MDF core — rigid, warp-resistant, built to last
✔️ UV printing directly on wood — no paper laminate, no peeling
✔️ Traditional grid-cut design
✔️ Handcrafted wooden keepsake box included
✔️ Made to order — ships in 3–4 weeks

💎 Why This Puzzle Lasts

Most wooden puzzles in this category run $300 to $500. The craft justifies it. WAWW gets to the same materials differently: direct manufacturing, no wholesale chain, made to order only. The price reflects that structure, not a compromise in quality.

The 3mm MDF core is what makes the pieces feel substantial in your hand. Cardboard compresses and warps with humidity; MDF holds its shape decade after decade, which means the fit that clicks on day one still clicks twenty years later. The UV printing bonds directly to that wood surface with no paper layer between them. No laminate means no peeling edge, no color shift, and no loss of fine detail in linework like the musical score the cats are reading.

The traditional grid cut keeps the focus on solving the image rather than fighting novelty piece shapes. Every piece connects cleanly and separates cleanly. When the puzzle is finished, it goes into a handcrafted wooden keepsake box that was built to be kept, not recycled. Most people store the completed puzzle inside it. Some keep it assembled under glass. Either way, the box earns its place on a shelf. And because every puzzle is made to order, there's no warehouse stock, no sitting inventory, no waste — just your puzzle, made when you order it, shipped in 3 to 4 weeks.

🖼️ After You Finish It

Most people frame it. Van Kessel hasn't been in a public collection since that Bonhams sale in 2019. Owning the puzzle is the closest most people get to the original.