[2] At the outbreak of World War II, the Willinks owned two cats, Negus—who was named after an honorary title of Haile Selassie—and Petertje.

She wears a checkered jacket and holds a cat with black and white fur.

[2] The art critic Bob Witman groups Wilma with Cat with Willink's paintings leading up to 1940.

Witman says these are Willink's most appealing works, made when he definitely had abandoned his early interest in abstraction and developed a magic realism that omits psychology.

[3] He highlights its composition and the technical accomplishment in the way the jacket's fabric and the cat are painted.

The museum bought it at auction on 24 May 1960, one month after Wilma's death from an intracerebral hemorrhage.

[a] The museum selected it by asking the public to name the most beautiful painting in its collection.