Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, American
“Do You Like the Dove? I Thought It Was the Perfect Gift When You Told Me You Were an Aspiring Magician.”
“MUS-ician.”
*LONG PAUSE. IN THE DISTANCE, A DOG BARKS.
“Receipt’s in the Cage.” 1883
Oil on canvas
Follow That Is Priceless on Social Media and GoComics (the Link button):
Click to Follow This Blog or Share This Masterpiece:
/// Two young girls from some Ancient Greek Age
have “The Captive” released from its cage.
A pure snowy white dove
symbolized peace and love.
Is it dying? That’s too hard to gauge.
/// On their faces, some longing may show;
the expression’s ambiguous, though.
Do they warn it’s not right
to hold something too tight?
(If you love a thing, just let it go!)
/// Are they acting out some mythic scene
of a love that ought not to have been?
Were these messenger birds
to exchange written words?
Did a husband guess and intervene?
/// To be blunt, did these girls have a fling?
Do they know why the caged bird would sing?
Though the dove is now mute,
it appears to salute,
and he’s doing it with his right wing!
/// Miss Elizabeth Gardner, we know,
learned from William-Adolfe Bouguereau.
When his wife (and Mom) died,
she became William’s bride,
and she paints in his style. Is it faux?
/// After William’s first wife passed away,
no successor emerged ‘til the day
when his mother died, too.
Mama took a dim view
of her son’s “student.” Married? No way!
/// But when Mama died William wed Liz
and she joined in the family biz.
Was this woman a hack
riding on her man’s back?
Nepotism just is what it is.