Agatha Christie was the name of a kitten given to artist Patrick J. Moran by a girlfriend when he lived in New Jersey. She was a cute little Siamese cat who used to greet Moran with her head rotated sideways to peer up at him from a cute angle. Her cuteness may have had something to do with her disappearance, which inspired Moran to draw Lost Cat posters that became the basis for a painting.
Jongleur and I own a touched-up print of the Agatha Christie painting (No. 4 of 999), which depicts a more full-grown Agatha peering up and out of the canvas, her head at the angle described above. By "touched-up print" I mean that Moran painted on the print itself, giving it a texture and uniqueness all her own. It's almost like owning an original, but much cheaper. Since we bought Agatha, Moran has completed and sold several more, but of course ours is the best of all those I've seen.
Moran explained to us that for the painting, he aged the the image of the kitten on his Lost Cat posters, "like on a milk carton", he put it. The artist said he felt certain that the kitten who went missing years ago was adopted by someone who could not resist her charms.
Agatha occupied a place of honor in our Laguna Beach house, facing the front door, where she was often the first to greet any who come in. This place also afforded her an excellent view. She "really tied the room together", to paraphrase a line from The Big Lebowski, and we are glad to have welcomed her into our lives.