The Madonnas Of Leningrad by Debra Dean

Author:Debra Dean [Dean, Debra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: prose_contemporary

Listen. Coming up the Main Staircase, you can hear them, their raucous laughter and shouted toasts. “The king drinks!” they cry. There is a party in progress in the Snyders Room, a feast to celebrate the Day of the Three Kings. The traditional pie has been baked, and the older man in the middle there must have gotten the piece with the bean inside, because he is wearing the crown of the Bean King. He is surrounded by a tight composition of happy, jostling couples, children, and even a babe in arms. “The king drinks!” Glasses are raised. Do you see that fellow standing behind him with the upraised pitcher? That is the Bean King’s son-in-law, the painter himself. And there is Jordaens’s wife, Yelizabeth. Oh, and over here, look at this, this fellow in the jester’s cap, with one hand reaching out for Jordaens’s pitcher while the other slips casually down the front of this woman’s bodice. “The king drinks! The king drinks!” There they go again. They are boisterous, rollicking. The only stillness in the painting is in the lower right corner, a hound whose eyes are focused with canine intensity on the ham in the Bean King’s lap.

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