A cat wearing a winged helmet and breastplate was posing for a photographer decades before pet costumes became a social-media staple.
The Library of Congress catalog dates a front-facing portrait titled Brünnhilde to 1936 and credits photographer Adolph Edward Weidhaas.
A costume with an operatic reference
Brünnhilde is the Valkyrie character associated with Richard Wagner’s Ring opera cycle. The miniature armor translates that theatrical identity into an animal portrait.
The catalog identifies the costume, creator and date. It also notes that the story of the cat and a series of costumed photographs appeared in the advertising trade publication Advertising & Selling in 1936.
A separate catalog entry preserves a side view, giving viewers another angle on the elaborate outfit.
An archival photograph with a modern audience
The library’s front-view record states that there are no known restrictions on publication and notes that no copyright renewal was found in a check conducted in 2018. That is the institution’s rights advisory, rather than a blanket rule applying to every photograph in its collections.
The portrait’s appeal is easy to recognize: a grand dramatic costume paired with an ordinary cat’s expression. Its archival record makes it more than an anonymous meme, preserving the photographer’s name and the commercial world in which the image was made.