Charlotte County Florida Weekly

Cats of Amsterdam




Cats on the Poezenboot enjoy the attentions of visitors and volunteers.

Cats on the Poezenboot enjoy the attentions of visitors and volunteers.

Just around the corner and across the canal from our hotel, we saw it: De Poezenboot. While the name looks as if it might be a riff on Puss in Boots, it’s actually the name of a unique shelter for cats — the Cat Boat.

While Amsterdam doesn’t have a large population of free-roaming cats — at least not in the center of the city — there are always some cats who need a temporary or permanent home. The Poezenboot (pronounced POOH-sen boat) was founded for them 54 years ago by cat lover Henriette van Weelde, who found herself caring for more cats than her home could comfortably hold. Her solution was to buy a barge where they could live safely and comfortably.

Today, the Poezenboot can house up to 50 cats, although at the time of our visit a few weeks ago, there were about 25. Some, like Beyaz, a blind white cat who was making the most of a lap provided by a visitor from Alabama, have a home for life, but others are available for adoption. Cats coming in make a two-week stay in a quarantine room before being integrated into the larger cat area, which is amply stocked with cat toys, beds and other feline paraphernalia.

A fleet of volunteers cares for the cats, who have the run of a large room, including a door to the outside, also fitted out with beds and ledges for sunbathing cats. A high fence ensures that they don’t take an accidental dip in the canal.

The Poezenboot welcomes visitors three days a week, who must make an appointment online and use hand sanitizer before entering the cat room. Entry is free, but the Poezenboot is supported entirely by donations, so don’t forget to drop some euros in the contribution box as you leave. And if you yearn to bring a cat home but can’t, you can choose one to sponsor instead. See the website — depoezenboot.nl/en — to make a reservation or donation.

Art lovers can get their cat fix in an unusual way: a visit to the Kattenkabinet, a museum devoted to the feline persuasion (kattenkabinet.nl/en). Located in a grand old home on the Herengracht, the canal where 17th-century movers and shakers built their abodes, the museum was founded in 1990 by Bob Meijer in memory of his cat John Pierpont Morgan. Meijer and his family still live above the museum.

The Kattenkabinet contains paintings, posters, photographs, lithographs, drawings, sculptures and more of, yes, cats. Among the artists whose works are represented are art nouveau painter Theophile Steinlen; Henriette Ronner-Knip, a 19th-century portrait artist who specialized in cats, dogs and landscapes; early impressionist Edouard Manet; cubism pioneer Pablo Picasso; and Dutch Golden Age artist Rembrandt van Rijn. Morgan himself can be seen in some of the more modern works, such as Dutch painter and cartoonist Aart Clerkx’s depiction of him on a $1 bill, with the motto “We Trust No Dog.”

As befits a museum devoted to them, several cats wander the five rooms of the floor where the art is displayed, rubbing up against a corner or sprawling on a sunlit chair or table, awaiting the attentions of visitors.

Visitors to two of Amsterdam’s art heavyweights — the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum — can also see depictions of cats in art. Cats in paintings represent themes ranging from deceit to danger to domesticity. Some works featuring cats to look for at these museums include Gabriel Metsu’s “The Cat’s Breakfast” and Henriette Ronner’s “The Cat at Play” (Rijksmuseum) and Vincent van Gogh’s sketch “Hand with Bowl and a Cat” at the Van Gogh Museum. ¦

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