A one-image-a-day thread for #NationalPetMonth. Hans Asper's 1538 portrait of Cleophea Krieg von Bellikon (now in @KunsthausZurich), with her cat and dog having a bit of a 'krieg' (war) themselves #PetHistory

Today's entry for #NationalPetMonth. When your pets interact...badly! An 18th c. Rajasthan miniature of a lady with stick trying to defend her pet parrot from being mauled by black and white cat (servant grabs a leg). Spot parrot cage on right ( @britishmuseum 1999,1202,0.4.19)

Day 3 of #NationalPetMonth and in honour of #Caturday, one of my favourite historical portraits of a Cat Man. Henry Sturgis Drinker with beloved ginger feline companion on lap, painted by Cecilia Beaux in 1898 (now in the Smithsonian American Art Museum) #CatsOfTwitter

Beautiful bunny for today's #NationalPetMonth post. Ivory netsuke carved by Mitsuhiro Ōhara, mid. 19th c. Japan, now in @metmuseum #BunnniesOfTwitter

#NationalPetMonth post. Looty, a little Pekingese dog literally looted in 1860 from the Summer Palace apartments of her previous owner, the Xianfeng Emperor's aunt who had taken her own life. Dog was presented to Queen Victoria and portrait exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862.

1st-2nd c. AD Roman epitaph plaque to Margarita (Pearl), a white dog: "...I used to lie on the soft lap of my master and mistress and knew to go to bed when tired on my spread mattress..." Read all translated epitaph here (British Museum https://bit.ly/3uprmlN ) #NationalPetMonth

#NationalPetMonth 12th. c. Hugh of St Victor: "Even though the ape is a most vile, filthy, and detestable animal, the clerics like to keep it in their houses and to display it in their windows, so as to impress the passing rabble with the glory of their possessions" (Douce 6 17v)

Adding to the great #NationalPetMonth thread here's my all-time favourite early modern dog portrait. Giovanna Garzoni's c. 1648 portrait of a Medici lapdog (Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti). Smug obese pet, with #PetBling belled collar, eating fancy biscuits (spot flies on one)

Day nine of #NationalPetMonth. A Victorian mourning brooch for a little Spitz dog, with a lock of white dog fur in the back, with the inscription "FAITHFUL & TRUE/ MUFF Obit. Nov. 24th 1862 at Dinapore. Aged 8 Years & 6 Months" (British Museum no. 1978,1002.201)

For #Caturday on this #NationalPetMonth thread. A nun spins wool while her cat plays with the spindle ( @britishlibrary Ms Stowe 17 f. 34r, early 14th c. Book of Hours, Netherlands) #nuntastic

#NationalPetMonth thread continues (and bonus #NationalPetDay), here's Giovanni Antonio Bazzi 'Il Sodoma' self-portrait with his beloved pet badgers (mentioned in Vasari's Lives of Artists) wearing #PetBling little red collars with silver studs!! (Monte Oliveto Maggiore) #badgers

Not even half way through #NationalPetMonth, and this thread gets larger, with petite South American pets in George Morland's "Selling Guinea Pigs", ca. 1789 (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection) #GuineaPigsofTwitter #GeorgianGuineaPigs

#NationalPetMonth King Charles VIII (1470-1498) of France kept marmots as pets, and paid his tailor to make a little tan and red velvet coat ('habillement') for one of the royal marmots ('une des marmottes d’iceluy seigneur’) #MarmotMadness

As it's #WombatWednesday, today's #NationalPetMonth post is Dante Gabriel Rossetti'self-portrait and poem (British Museum) as he mourns the death of his pet wombat in 1869. Said wombat was later stuffed and displayed to all. Pre-Raphaelites were completely obsessed with wombats!

Today's #NationalPetMonth post #OTD in 1452, Leonardo da Vinci was born. Here's one of his drawings of Virgin and Child with Cat (1478-1481). Cat does not look overly thrilled about the situation, and Baby Jesus is probably asking for trouble....(British Museum 1856,0621.1)

#NationalPetMonth A keen Melitian dog (i.e small, white and fluffy), carefully secured on a leash goes for a boat trip in a detail of Cranach the Elder's "The Stag Hunt" in @burrellcollect

#NationalPetMonth & #Caturday St Brendan's party is attacked by a giant sea cat west of Ireland. Cat had been the pet kitten of local monks but became big and aggro after eating the local fish (in 1st Vita San Brendani). Illustrated in Lucy Berman's Famous & Fabulous Cats

#NationalPetMonth continues! 19th c. Russian playright Anton Chekhov on his beloved dachshunds Bromide & Quinine: “The former is dexterous and lithe, polite and sensitive. The latter is clumsy, fat, lazy and sly…They both love to weep from an excess of feelings.”

#NationalPetMonth When Isabella d'Este's cat Martino died in 1510, courtier Mario Equicola organised the funeral & gave a sermon at the grave. Isabella brought her dog Aura and son Federico's dog Ribolin along to pay their respects (in my 'Medieval Pets' book, Boydell & Brewer)

#NationalPetMonth Jean Lemaire de Belges wrote Les Épîtres de l’amant vert to comfort Marguerite of Austria whose parrot had been eaten by a dog in 1505. In poem, the parrot goes on a Dante-like journey through the underworld, until reaching Pet Paradise (full of famous animals)

#NationalPetMonth continues. For #WombatWednesday here's Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 1869 sketch of Jane Morris taking his pet wombat Top out for a walk on a leash, both haloed. Pre-Raphaelite Val Prinsept: "Wombats were the most beautiful of God’s creatures" (British Museum)

A nun clutches her lapdog in an initial D in an early 14th c. book of Hours (British Library Stowe 17 f. 100r). Medieval nuns were always getting told by ecclesiastical authorities to get rid of their pets. Reader, they didn't... #NationalPetMonth #nuntastic

#NationalPetMonth The poet Lord Byron got around Trinity Cambridge's no dog rules by getting a pet bear instead. He couldn't have pulled that stunt at King's as their 15th c. statutes banned pet bears, badgers, foxes, wolves, deer, and 'all wild animals' (image: Quentin Blake)

#NationalPetMonth and #Caturday Dominican writer Thomas of Cantimpré (1201-1272) was intrigued by cats' purring: "They delight in being stroked by the hand of a person and they express their joy with their own form of singing" (Bodleian, Ms Bodley 533 f. 13r)

#NationalPetMonth As it's the feast day of St Mark today, here's the evangelist writing his gospel in the company of his symbolic lion and OF COURSE his pet cat....(British Library, Add. 35313, f. 16v, Ghent ca. 1500)

The mega-thread for #NationalPetMonth continues! We now go to Ancient Rome and meet Lucius Crassus who was so devoted to his beloved pet eel that he fed it by hand, put earrings on it (!), and sobbed at the eel's funeral (p.s. follow @greenleejw for all your eel history needs)

#NationalPetMonth Pets messing up your stuff since forever...spot the muddy cat paw prints and signs of a struggle to remove feline from parchment page in this 12th c. copy of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies (British Library Burney MS 326 f. 104v)

Continuing #NationalPetMonth and here's a 1735 painting of Sir Hans Sloane's pet wolverine ( @britishmuseum). The wolverine, brought from Hudson Bay, had only one eye and would walk in a circle every few paces, but insisted on following Sloane everywhere in the house 'like a Dog'.

Penultimate day of #NationalPetMonth and here's a painted English albaster statute of Very Good Dog with a little collar who once stood at the feet of a late 14th/early 15th c. tomb (image from British Antique Dealers' Association)