Dali House

There seems to be some dispute as to whether this painting of the Last Supper is actually by Santo Peranda (1566-1638), also known as Sante and, according to other sources, Santa (not kidding).

Evidently the much busier Palma Giovane (1548?-1628) is another suspect, but this “Ultima Cena” was being auctioned off in Peranda’s name in Milan recently, for around €35,000.

Regardless of who’s responsible, it’s certainly not the way we’re accustomed to seeing Jesus’ going-away party.

Here the banquet is transported to a rather lively Italian restaurant that lets dogs and cats loaf about. And two of the apostles appear to be having a secret tipple directly opposite the boss.

Mannerism takes its liberties, but you wonder what Leonardo must have thought of this. He was working just down the road at the time.

“Portrait of Mona Lisa”, yes. Quite old, too. But no, it’s not that one.

This is tagged “Italian School 17th century, after Leonardo Da Vinci” for Sotheby’s late-January sale “Important Old Master Paintings, Including European Works of Art” in New York. Expected retail price between $18,000 and $25,000.

What is that on her shoulder, anyway?

Salvador Dali’s “L’Ouroboros”

From the pedant’s encyclopaedia comes the revelation that Jesus and his apostles had more than bread and wine as appetisers at the Last Supper, followed by a main course of Christ’s body and blood.

Actually the news (olds?) came via Britain’s Daily Mail earlier this month: Leonardo da Vinci decided that the Last Supper menu ought to have included eel with orange slices.

The newspaper cited an interview in Gastronomica magazine in which art historian John Varriano claimed that a 1997 restoration of Leonardo’s iconic painting showed these delicacies — “very fashionable in the 1400s” — on the table.

And besides, Varriano said, his research on Leonardo found that he too was an eel connoisseur.

Below is an actual postcard of the actual “Last Supper” purchased in Milan, the actual city where Leo’s actual painting actually is.

It was given to me just as the Daily Mail was making its “Christ Menu Shock!” announcement by my colleague Veena Thoopkrajae, who had just returned from an actual trip to Milan and seen the actual masterpiece.

“The Burden (The Laundress)”, circa 1850-53

Born 200 years ago this year, Honoré Daumier endowed caricature with art and art with humanity. But where was he 166 years ago today, August 27? He was starting a jail term for being a wise guy.

Too much of the sweet life only leaves you with wisdomless molars in agony, and where is Daumier when you need him? “Have a toothache? See Daumier!” Van Gogh wrote to Theo. He’d seen a Daumier drawing called “The Excursion Train” and forgot all about his rotting bite.

You would think Honoré Daumier would be everywhere in this bicentennial of his birthday. There have indeed been a string of exhibitions in Germany, and according to Wikipedia, Asia and Australia dusted him off for his 200th, but for the most part it seems that the French keep him pretty much to themselves, amid couched allusions to his whereabouts.

Where is this “Villa Daumier” where he died early in 1879, blind and destitute and dependent upon the kindness of better-off painters? Was the little house that Corot bought for him in Valmondois or Auvers? Online sources can’t seem to agree, though surely the website of Valmondois itself, from which this photo came, can be trusted when it says it’s there … but where? It offers no address, just a “Come and see the latest of the exhibitions by other artists that we put on at the villa.”

It’s on Chemin Bescherelle, another source says, but try finding the great lexicographer’s name anywhere in the vicinity. Instead, others insist, it’s right on the main drag, and since a Place Honoré Daumier adjoins it, the house must be there, right? Here’s Google Earth’s view of the neighbourhood.

That’s presumably the town square just beyond Place Honoré Daumier in this shot, where there’s a bust of Daumier by Adolphe-Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume.

Valmondois says online it installed the sculpture in 1909, the centenary of Honoré’s birth in far-off Marseilles.

When Daumier died his body was carted over the the town cemetery, but it didn’t stay there long, as we shall see in a moment.

Not far from Place Honoré Daumier are Allée Maurice de Vlaminck and Rue Dorée. Vlaminck certainly spent time in Valmondois, well after Daumier’s day, but I’m not sure about Gustave Dorée. France has a tendency to honour its artists this way in any old town, no matter where they hung out. Charles-François Daubigny is said to have been a resident of Valmondois, but his famously decorated house is in Auvers, adding to the muddle.

Where is the house of Théodore Rousseau in Barbizon, where Daumier spent his summer vacation in 1865? Barbizon has a Rue Théodore Rousseau — you can see it shouldering off from the main street in the image below. Interestingly, that road is crossed by little Allée John Constable, just in case the English forgot to pay tribute to their landscape maestro.

Daumier’s final and forever address is easier to find. He’s here amid Death’s busy clutter in Pere Lachaise Cemetery, his friend Corot within eternal reach. Daumier’s admirers decided a year or so after he died that he deserved to be among the greats in Paris’ best-known graveyard, so they disengaged him from Valmondois’ clutch.

See the rest.

Dalí’s collaborator Philippe Halsman took a series of photos of Sal’s divine whiskers for the 1954 book “Dalí Moustache”, including the Mona Lisa embellishment above (a real moustache, apparently), which I’ve lined up against Marcel Duchamp’s celebrated “LHOOQ” from 1919.

At least one commentator has chastised Dalí for being far too late with this gag, regardless of whether this was intended as a mere pun or as a renewed declaration of war on old-school painting. But maybe Dalí knew something about Duchamp that still isn’t widely known.

“Parody” is the word most often used in describing “LHOOQ”. Others are hot bum, hot ass, hot arse and hot pants. Commentators do the jitterbug when they “translate” the title. Pronounce the letters aloud in French slowly, quickly, in a slurred fashion, with gusto, and you ought to hear Elle a chaud au cul, common street lingo for “She has a hot arse” or “She is hot in the bum / ass” or “She’s got hot pants” or, Duchamp once dubiously offered, “There is fire down below”, by which someone else presumed “She’s horny”.

Maybe “LHOOQ” is supposed to be read in English as “look”, said another, which is a good title for an artwork, after all. I suggest that, read in English when very, very drunk, the letters suggest, “Shhhe’s sooooo cute.” Any takers?

The most interesting thing about the postcard view of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa that Duchamp randomly defiled in 1919 is that it’s apparently not a randomly defiled postcard of the Mona Lisa. See the rest.