Eugene de Blaas, Italian
“Congratulations, Girl!!! I KNEW They Were Going To Promote You To Socks and Underwear. Give Me 5 Minutes To Get the Rest of the Lice Out of These Pillowcases and Let’s Go Grab a Drink,” 1904
Oil on panel
Follow That Is Priceless on Social Media and GoComics (the Link button):
Click to Follow This Blog or Share This Masterpiece:
Info about this artist is pointed to by my comment and replies at another blog entry.
/// With the girls, Rosa’s Sharing the News
about which laundress Gino would choose.
He’s their boss’s suave son,
who wrote “Rosa’s the one,”
(despite Zita’s bent down down-blouse views).
/// Zita flirted with Gino in hope
he’d select her to marry, but… nope!
Blouses, low-cut and wet
were, it seems, the wrong bet.
He’s a leg-man, so Zita— no soap!
/// Nearly all girls in town are brunette.
Rosa was the first redhead he’d met.
When she grants his appeal
that she prove her hue real,
he caught sight of her gams and… Kismet!
/// To attract a man, some girls were sure
that the key was to keep themselves pure,
but hot water and lye
made skin red, rough and dry.
In no time, they would lose their allure.
/// With her time running out, none to spare,
pretty Rosa was keenly aware
that she’d better, right now,
make her man “buy the cow.”
Give the “milk” away free? Didn’t dare!
/// To a point, she’d been eager to please.
(She spent quite a few hours on her knees.)
But one line she’d not cross
with the son of her boss,
which, no unwanted births, guarantees.
/// Every hard-working laundress will get,
from the splashing of water, all wet.
And the hot Tuscan sun
will ensure that each one
will be dripping with warm, salty sweat.
/// With the Proustian perfume of soap,
recalled fondly, I easily cope,
but the pungent conflation
with rank perspiration
keeps me, sadly, too distant to grope.