Catwoman with Her Cat Holding a Stolen Necklace — Print & Oil Painting

The transaction is the subject. A black cat sits upright on the parapet with a gold necklace held in its jaws, an oval chain strung with four pale cabochons and a single red stone swinging from the clasp, and the animal has its chin lifted so that the whole piece hangs clear. It is not an accessory in this picture. It is the one carrying the goods.

She is crouched low on the ledge and turned back over her shoulder toward the viewer, weight carried on one gloved hand at the bottom of the frame. The cowl has short pointed ears and a pair of goggles pushed up onto the brow, and the mouth is the only warm colour on the head. The painting is digital and airbrushed throughout: no stroke is visible anywhere, and the suit reads as a continuous sheet of blue grey with one narrow ochre edge light running down the shoulder and along the hip.

Above her the Bat-Signal is thrown against low cloud, a white bat inside a ring of pale gold, and it is by a wide margin the brightest thing in the image. Around it the towers go violet, cyan and slate, and hundreds of small motes hang in the air between the buildings and the ledge, catching the light like snow or like dust lifted off the roof.

The lower half of the canvas is nearly black. That decision leaves only three lit points for the eye to travel between: the signal at the top, the face at the centre, and the necklace between the two. The route is short and it tells the whole story without a caption.

Selina Kyle has always been Gotham's most careful thief rather than its loudest, and the picture sets her at the exact moment the city notices: the prize already in hand, the signal already lit. Part of our DC Universe collection. She is seen again at closer range, and with company waiting below, in a close view of Catwoman as Batman waits in the alley, while the same beam is answered from the other end in Batman standing atop a cathedral beneath the Bat-Signal.