Johann Gottfried Auerbach, German
“If the Baby Asks For His Rattle, You Never Saw Me. Got It?,” ca. 1730
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 #3178
Info, or perhaps links to more info, about this artist can be found here (archived if necessary), and here (if truncated, can be read in full for free on Fridays), perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated German Wikipedia page has more).
/// Kaiser Karl the sixth could be pugnacious.
He had foes who had claimed he’s rapacious.
Some Brits said, (with snarls),
don’t say “Karl;” call him “Charles.”
He was baptized Carolus Franciscus Josephus Wenceslaus Balthasar Johannes Antonius Ignatius.
/// Having eight long first names is a curse.
Hard to memorize, and even worse,
there’s no room when he’d sign
on a small dotted line.
(Plus, they don’t fit in Solstice’s verse.)
/// He’s the Emperor (Holy and Roman).
In his dress he was hardly a showman.
Mention Karl’s Habsburg face
you’ll get whacked by his mace,
which would be, at the least, an ill omen.
/// Karl’s long reign often featured defiance
of some complex new Great State alliance.
Countless “Wars of Succession”
solved disputes by aggression.
Karl was sometimes forced into compliance.
/// In the lands he ruled, Karl was the Law,
but you couldn’t tell from what you saw.
He wore black, but bright red
plumes festooned ‘round his head,
drew attention away from that jaw.
/// Though the sun has just set, sky’s dark blue,
the gloom inside this room isn’t new.
Never bright, always dim,
under orders from him.
If you looked that that, you’d hate light, too.