Thursday, 24 February 2011

Mouton 1993

 

Mouton's famous artist wine labels are well known but not even its fame was able to rescue the above label from the US censors. The nude by Balthus failed to past the obscenities censors so the US shipments were provided with a blank label instead. So much for Americans being open-minded.
This however reminded me of a lecture when I was in medical school. Now there have been so many medical lectures, both during and since medical school, that it has to be very memorable to be recalled. The lecture was on breast cancer and the special reason that I remembered it was the amount of Rembrandts the professor showed in the talk. Now how did a Dutch Old Master get into a breast cancer talk? Because of the realistic nature of his painting. The Prof used the nudes to illustrate the signs in the late stages of breast cancer, noting that the model Saskia who was also the painter's wife, died of that same disease. I have been looking that up since and can confirm that Saski was indeed Rembrandt's wife, but she died soon after childbirth. His other lovers and models had not been recorded as dying from breast cancer, so how come there were enough signs in his paintings for the professor to teach us?

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