Charles Sillem Lidderdale, English
Young Girl Looking To Trade For a Relief Pitcher, 1875
Oil on canvas
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MASTERPIECE #3479
/// Tears well up as her oversized eyes
view the artist she’s come to despise.
He is making a mockery
of the child’s fractured crockery.
Over needlessly spilt milk Jill cries.
/// Lidderdale said if she broke her pitcher,
then the painting’s worth more and he’s richer.
He told Jill to look sad,
(like she’d done something bad),
and with calming words tried to bewitch her.
/// Charles was right, as a matter of fact,
that this oil of an object that’s cracked
and her unsmiling pose
holds more intrigue than those
with a jug of milk, full and intact.
/// That old pitcher was lovingly fashioned
by Jill’s grandmother from clay that’s rationed.
A rare family heirloom,
‘twas a true crack of doom
which destroyed it, now Jill is impassioned.
/// When the painting sold, it came to pass
that the painter sought out the young lass.
He could see she’s still miffed,
so he’d brought her a gift—
a new pitcher of crystalline glass.
/// “You have dozens of pitchers in stock.
Sure, she dropped one, but still it’s a shock
that because she can’t pay
you would beat her this way.
Spanking salesgirls for breakage? A crock!”
/// Over symbols shown here I have glossed:
Broken pitcher means innocence lost.
She’s a virgin no more.
Having “opened that door,”
she’s aware of the risks and the cost.
(There are many paintings, often by famous artists, of pretty yet contrite young girls posing with or near a broken pitcher.)