MASTERPIECE #3281

/// Kettle’s Portrait of Anne Howard-Vyse,
(wedding portrait, to be more precise),
shows Anne sans her left glove
with her ring. Sign of love?
(Or a sign that she’s rolling the dice.)

/// One would think she should look overjoyed,
but she stares at us out of a void.
Is she mildly annoyed?
Has her world been destroyed?
No one knows— this was long before Freud.

/// Then, of course, there’s her ginormous hat,
which is roughly the size of a vat.
The same person would make
Anne’s hat and wedding cake.
(It draws eyes from her bust, which is flat.)

/// Money woes are why Anne’s looking grim.
Wed in white silk with rich ermine trim.
Swore she’d pay her own way,
but got fired today.
Now must charge her whole outfit to him.

/// From the age of fourteen she’s been working.
No one ever accused her of shirking.
Her most recent employer
had her work as a lawyer,
but she paid for her studies by twerking.

/// Painter Kettle, whose first name was Tilly,
had a handle that sounds (to us) silly.
Not “Matilda” cut short;
Kettle’s male, (a good sport).
He’d have blushed had his folks named him “Willie.”

/// In his mid-thirties, portraitist Kettle,
sailed to India where he would settle
for eight years, making art.
Then, for home he’d depart,
having proved he’s a fine man of mettle.

/// Tilly Kettle officially scores,
points for painting this portrait indoors.
Once before he had seen a
fish-face in a Cantina.
“It’s a trap!” Ackbar said in Star Wars.
(With the name Tilly Kettle, he could easily be
a minor character in the Star Wars universe.)