![In Jean de La Fontaine's seventeenth-century fable, which this painting illustrates, a cunning monkey persuades a cat to retrieve roasting chestnuts from a fire. The term 'cat's paw,' meaning a person In Jean de La Fontaine's seventeenth-century fable, which this painting illustrates, a cunning monkey persuades a cat to retrieve roasting chestnuts from a fire. The term 'cat's paw,' meaning a person](https://c8.alamy.com/comp/MMNEK3/in-jean-de-la-fontaines-seventeenth-century-fable-which-this-painting-illustrates-a-cunning-monkey-persuades-a-cat-to-retrieve-roasting-chestnuts-from-a-fire-the-term-cats-paw-meaning-a-person-unwittingly-duped-by-another-derives-from-this-tale-numerous-engraved-and-painted-precedents-for-the-brutality-of-landseers-interpretation-existed-in-the-work-of-seventeenth-century-dutch-and-british-illustrators-of-la-fontaine-the-fabulists-symbolic-use-of-animals-to-describe-the-tribulations-of-human-existence-became-popular-among-nineteenth-century-romantic-painters-and-satirists-the-MMNEK3.jpg)
In Jean de La Fontaine's seventeenth-century fable, which this painting illustrates, a cunning monkey persuades a cat to retrieve roasting chestnuts from a fire. The term 'cat's paw,' meaning a person
![FABLES DE LA FONTAINE [LA FONTAINE'S FABLES] Illustrations de Felix Lorioux. von DE LA FONTAINE, JEAN.: (1929) | Marrins Bookshop FABLES DE LA FONTAINE [LA FONTAINE'S FABLES] Illustrations de Felix Lorioux. von DE LA FONTAINE, JEAN.: (1929) | Marrins Bookshop](https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/10900152237.jpg)
FABLES DE LA FONTAINE [LA FONTAINE'S FABLES] Illustrations de Felix Lorioux. von DE LA FONTAINE, JEAN.: (1929) | Marrins Bookshop
![Jean-Baptiste Patas | Le Pate d'Anguilles, from Contes et nouvelles en vers par Jean de La Fontaine. A Paris, de l'imprimerie de P. Didot, l'an III de la République, 1795 | The Jean-Baptiste Patas | Le Pate d'Anguilles, from Contes et nouvelles en vers par Jean de La Fontaine. A Paris, de l'imprimerie de P. Didot, l'an III de la République, 1795 | The](https://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/dp/original/DP813881.jpg)