Paulus Moreelse, Dutch
Countess Sophia With Her Three Boys (And One of Her Girls), 1621
Oil on canvas
Follow That Is Priceless on Social Media and GoComics (the Link button):
Click to Follow This Blog or Share This Masterpiece:
MASTERPIECE #652
Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, here, and here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated French Wikipedia page has more).
/// In old paintings, to symbolize “Charity,”
women offered a breast with great clarity.
Doesn’t seem a bit shy.
Perhaps one reason why
is it greatly enhanced popularity.
/// The three boys stare straight out at the viewer,
but their mother— it seems something drew her
gaze away to one side.
Could the painter have tried
to look deep in her eyes and to woo her?
/// Here’s the Countess Sophia as “Charity.”
Her display, some today call “vulgarity.”
We know breastfeeding’s healthy,
but this family’s so wealthy,
that no wet nurse employed is a rarity.
/// The Count used the wet nurse as his maid.
Made sure this pretty Miss got “mislaid.”
But it could have been worse.
Countess wanted to nurse,
not “go down,” so those jobs they would trade.
// Youngest son, (he’s the one wearing pearls),
shows no interest in “one of her girls.”
It could be he just ate,
but the fruit on that plate
does attract him. Some day, so will Earls.
/// (I most certainly don’t mean to say
that a boy who wears pearls must be gay.
So her son turned away
from her boob this one day…
but to lust after Earls? He’s “that way.”)
/// When her wardrobe malfunctioned, one knuckle
got a scrape ‘cause she couldn’t unbuckle
the top front of her dress.
That malfunction, no less,
was the reason her son couldn’t suckle.
/// With the artist’s assistance she tore
loose the top of the frock which she wore.
She was bare, free to nurse,
but then muttered a curse.
Her son wouldn’t latch on anymore.
Steve’s caption is once again the perfect joke to go with this painting, but in doing my usual minimal research, I discovered that his words may be truer than he thought. Sophia is portrayed as Caritas with her three sons, but I read that it is thought that the small figure in the arched doorway in the background at the right is a woman holding Sophia’s daughter.