Alfred Kubin “The Dream Cat” ca. 1910

Alfred Kubin is mainly known as a creator of gloomy dream worlds, which he depicted mostly with pencil and ink pen.
In this scene a hunting cat is lurking over a family of ducks in the shelter of the water’s edge and has just attacked the mother duck. Startled, her two ducklings flutter in the shallow water.
Kubin illustrates the great danger to which the ducks are exposed at the supposedly safe water bank by the threatening size of the cat itself. The predator is dominating the largest part of the drawing sheet, and it is obvious that the prey cannot escape its destiny.
Kubin captures the scene with quick strokes, emphasizing the dangerous play of the hunt. The identical motif of the hunting wildcat (but without ducks) can be found in a washed pen and ink drawing by Kubin, titled “The Dream Cat”. We therefore assume that this ink drawing could be a study for the work in question.