Do you remember the fable by Aesop about the Fox and the Stork? Sometimes it is the Fox and the Crane.
The fox invited the stork to supper. Fox serves a bowl of soup. Fox can lap from the bowl, but our stork, with its long bill can’t get at it. So, Stork then invited Fox to lunch. This time the soup is in a long necked vase. Stork can eat, but our fox can’t. MORAL: If you are deceitful, expect deceit in return. Reversed: Do unto others….
Here is a fun piece from English soft-paste porcelain set from about 1770 depicting Aesop’s fables, yes, in the Detroit Institute of Arts.
And here is another version of the same tale, but from a larger, more complete service. Again, English soft-paste but from about 1815 (think about something that Mrs. Aubrey might have in her cupboard).
And if you don’t like soft-paste porcelain, here is an 18th c. Italian hard-paste which I post in honor of self-absorbed promethean neopelagians everywhere.
And just because it is sweet and such a contract, we have Merrymakers, French from 1870 by Carolus-Duran (+1917).
In any event, I was met by a priest friend for lunch at the museum. He reminded me of a few other posts I have made when in Detroit.
Remember my investigative report of Michael Voris’ studio?
Then there was the time I went into the belly of the beat, the Call to Action convention when I took the photo of what looked like a gathering of Willy Nelson impersonators.
And then there was the time we went to the hat store and had an adventure with complete strangers and a tire iron.
Ah Detroit!
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I wish I was there too! Children ought to be read Aesop’s Fables. Today they read “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” but they won’t hear morality there. Gosh I loved those, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales too. They were all kind of harsh. Imagine that? We were green as grass, and much better off.
The Merrymakers is wonderful!
Oh how I would love to see anything by Duran or his pupil Sargent in person! Beautiful and thank you for posting the pictures so that we may see them up close. Just beautiful.
Fantastic paintings and porcelain-Aesop’s Fables were commonplace in schools when I grew up. My favorite book now has illustrations by Michael Hague, who has also done The Hobbit, and other children’s and fairy tales. These classic stories are great for home schooling families.
Like the bird on the table-is it a love bird? We had one we called the hate bird, as it tried to kill all of its mates.
Father, thank you for teaching me about the reversed fable. You have a gift for teaching. The Marrymakers is wonderful; truth be said, I had not heard of Duran but now I know. Gratias.
As a self-absorbed joyless neo-Pelagian I would point out that Prometheus would have had his liver mostly on the right side. But then, who am I to judge?
Wait… I am confused.
Am I a self-absorbed neo-pelagian? I am attached to the ancient rite and I try to squeeze out a decade of the Rosary here and there, as well as get to Confession; so, I think that means yes.
Or am I missing something here? I am in the midst of a Jacques Burzun book and he is in the middle lambasting museums and artsi-ness.
All that and never a pre-announced blognic in the D?
Diane: Father has been about his Father’s business.
The bird on the table is an orange fronted conure aka orange fronted parakeet. It is a small and noisy relative of macaws and comes from South America. Any minute the baby will try to grab the bird and it will bite, and they will momentarily not be merry.