Friday, October 27, 2017

Little Luther


It appears that my representative in Congress, John Shimkus (R, Illinois-15), likes to play with paper dolls. Okay. But it’s not okay to affix a paper doll to a painting that doesn’t belong to you. This 1881 painting of Frederick Muhlenberg hangs in the United States House of Representatives. Representative Shimkus has also shared a photograph of the doll nestled in the arm of a statue of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg. The 1889 statue stands in National Statuary Hall.

Related reading
All OCA John Shimkus posts

[Look closely and you’ll see that there’s no photoshopping involved. The doll is attached to the frame. The doll’s shadow falls on the wall.]

comments: 2

Anonymous said...

In the early 1980's I had a student work job in the Exhibits Shop of the University Museum & Galleries at Southern Illinois University. One of my jobs was to conduct an annual inventory of Museum owned art hanging in buildings around campus. I routinely found paintings in offices being used as bulletin boards. People literally taped and/or thumb tacked items on the paintings.
I remain stunned to this day.

Michael Leddy said...

I just remembered what your story reminds me of, Anon. In Willa Cather’s novel The Professor’s House, a clerk at the “Indian Commission” in D.C. is interested in an Anasazi bowl for use as an ashtray.