I listen to Desert
Islands Disks on Radio 4 and at the end of the show the guests are asked to
pick one object to take with them to the desert island. One man picked a
painting called Old Woman Frying Eggs.
I'd never heard of it and looked it up and upon seeing it my eyes immediately
fell on the eggs in the pan. This painting is intricate when you zoom into it -
the sheen on the pewter pans, the
creases in the clothes, the wizened hands. All fine details but your eyes go
straight to the eggs.
I thought I'd have
a go at painting some eggs. I've had a round canvas lying around in my bedroom
for a long time and thought it would serve as a pan. One evening I painted in
the basic shapes of the eggs using acrylics. The next morning I thought that at
least they looked like eggs so I got out the oil paints and added some details
- the air bubbles, those disgusting crispy bits (which I always cut off) and a some
olive oil sloshing in the pan. Lacking details it was soon it was done. An
average hen lays 300 to 325 eggs a year and each one carries about 70 calories.
Old Woman Frying Eggs was painted 400 years ago and is in
a gallery in Edinburgh if you want to see it. I tried to find a photo of the
grave of the painter Diego Velazquez but it's been lost. He died of a fever and
was buried in the vault of a church in Fuensalida in
Spain (his wife joined him eight days later) but the church was destroyed by
the French and the location of his resting place has been lost. At least the
painting still exists (painted when Diego was only 18 years old.)
This may suit
your kitchen. I'm afraid I'll have to charge £16,200 for it. High on aniseed
balls I gave away my car to a tramp and I need to buy a new one. The car was
only worth £200 but there was Louis
XVI bed headboard worth £16,000 in the boot (it's still got blood-tinged teeth
marks in the wood.) I can mail it off tomorrow after I've stroked my
neighbour's furry Chinchilla.