Collection Spotlight: Arthur E. Baggs

To get into the spooky spirit this Halloween, we are spotlighting this tile representation of two black cats with arched backs on a fence.

Designed by Arthur E. Baggs and decorated by Herbert L. Bartlett for Marblehead Potteries in 1910, this tile is on view in MAACM’s fourth floor Tile Gallery.

Cats and humans have a long history of living together. The ancient Egyptians worshiped Bastet, a Goddess with the head of cat. In the 8th century, sailors depended on cats to kill rats on their ships and watched their behavior to predict the weather. So how did black cats come to be such a classic Halloween symbol? In the Middle Ages, cats were associated with witches, serving as their spies and familiars. Later, in the 1600’s, Puritans condemned people they thought were witches persecuting both witches and black cats. Thus, the black cat became solidified in the canon of American Halloween symbols.