Excuse me, excuse me, do you see me? Please, I am here painted on this majolica riser and I need help! I am the figure in chains, kneeling for almost four centuries before the Emperor. I can't take it any more, my back hurts, the neck irons are heavy, I can't feel my legs.
If this is punishment for whatever I have committed, I would have preferred a swift end. My jailers do not feel the fatigue, happy as they are to have made a good impression on the Emperor. Their feet must be swollen too, their sciatic nerve inflamed, don't you think? Not at all, they smile ebetically and look at me as if I were prey to be confined in a menagerie.
The emperor sits comfortably under the canopy, and here I am prostrate at his feet. Of course, I realise that the centrepiece is beautiful and everyone is smiling in an enchanted landscape: beautiful flowers, daffodils, flowering bamboos, multi-coloured birds, even the fly is multi-coloured, but I can't take it any more. I swear, I didn't want to enter the kitchens of the Forbidden City, but the hunger! There was such a good smell of lacquered duck and oyster broth that I could not resist, I entered those rooms dense with perfumed vapours and began to nibble with my hands what was well prepared to be served at the Son of Heaven's table. Believe me, I told the guards, it was not I who was stealing, it was hunger acting on its own.
Here I am now, chained forever, right on a centrepiece riser... if fate is not mocking! Mr. Visitor, I beg you, can you help me? If you do, I will show you the secret passage to the kitchens so that you too can sample the imperial delicacies.What do you say? Are you afraid you'll end up like me? She has a point, but it was worth it, I confess, I have never tasted such good and refined food.
- The work: Centrepiece riser 1735-45. Palace of Museums Varallo (VC)
- Discover the museum
Digital Assistant