Felix Fiigenschou was born in 1628 and became a very important portrait painter of the 1630 ´s. This web gallery in honour of this famous cat and the story of his short, but eventful life. To most people, this might seem like a very unlikely event, but in 1968 the discovery of a strange collection of paintings made during the refurbishing of the top floor apartment in Kjell O. Dahls gate (street) in Oslo, revealed a story so amazing, and so controversial, that the history of our civilization had to be changed. The curator of this selection of works is the Norwegian artist Jan Terje Rafdal from Etne. He has been busy restoring a lot of the works in his studio and has also accumulated much the information available. (He is denying all the allegations that he has fabricated the whole plot!). This selection of works will show some recently discovered pieces along with some important works from public and private/collections. So, who was he, the cat artist? Felix Fiigenschou was born in Oslo (then called Christiania, after the Danish King who ruled Norway) in 1628. He came from a somewhat prosperous family, but chose to brake up and move to Holland to chase his dream of becoming a portrait painter. This made his father, Mauritz Fiigenschou furious as he meant that Felix was destined to become the new leader of their family business. The stay in Amsterdam at the Art Academy of Hartzfleichische Kunstmaalengeshaft was far from pleasant. Felix never felt that his talent was appreciated amongst his tutors. Nevertheless, when he made his urgent move back to Norway, he had gathered enough knowledge of fine art to become one of the most famous painters in Scandinavia. The reason for this sudden journey back, was the fact that his father was dead, possibly murdered after a series of mysterious events following a trial. According to Felix´s diary, he was looking forward to enjoy the prosperous outcome of his inheritance, but Fortuna was not on his side this time, nor in much of the rest of his life. His father was in great debt to Fredric Feline, a scrupulous, corrupt and greedy prosecutor that made an inside deal with Mauritz to get him out of the lawsuit and to keep his mouth shut after obtaining information about a bribe made by Mauitz to one of the court judges, Sylvester Jhammerkath. In the end of the day, Mauritz lost the trial and at the same time he had to pay off Fredric Feline. Having nothing to loose, Mauritz probably made an attempt to reveal the truth, but someone had him thrown in the river Akerselva in the heart of Christiania in June, 1631. Felix was stuck with his father´s debts and had to sell out the family estate to cover the lawsuit. However, he also had to pay Fredric Feline. Having no money left he, Fredric suggested he could work on a series of family portraits to pay down the debts. Did Felix have any choice? No, and this was the start of the famous "Feline-collection". The works by Felix Fiigenschou that exist today include many oil paintings ranging from small miniatures to large oversized works, like the newly discovered "Equestrian portrait of Duke Gusman”. His works on paper have also been much sought after on the art market. Amongst the more impressive works on paper, we find the sketch book that has been restored after being found in a terrible state of preservation. This book contains many small studies of cats, animals and a few landscapes. Also a large number of cathematic (Cat-mathematics) formulas and theories, and some studies for inventions like the “paw-claw” mousetrap. We hope that you will enjoy the world of Felix Fiigenschou and that you will enjoy the knowledge of this strange historical character that made such a grand impact on our way of understanding the world history.