A Pet Portrait as a Gift

Personalised gifts come in every form — from mug to pillowcase. Why a portrait is the only one still hanging on the wall twenty years from now.

A photo gift is ordered in a moment: drop in the picture, done. And that is precisely why it so often disappears into a drawer — a gift that asked for no effort asks for no place either. A portrait works the other way around. It asks for a choice (which style suits this animal?), a judgement (is the likeness right?) and a frame. What took effort earns a wall.

A personal gift is personal not because a name is printed on it, but because attention went into it.

For the cat lover something more comes with it: the subject is not a face from a photo album, but the housemate who claims the sofa every evening. To give that one’s portrait is to say, without detour: I know who plays the leading role in your home.

And it is simpler in practice than it sounds. A single photograph of the cat will do — discreetly borrowed from the family chat — and you judge the portrait yourself before you pay. The surprise stays intact; the risk does not.

And sometimes the gift is a keepsake: a portrait of a cat who is no longer here, for the one who remains. For that we have set aside a quieter room of our own.

— the atelier