The poor departed

“Grief is the price we pay for love…”

Queen Elizabeth II

A lasting memory of my Nanna Mainie is this image. It hung over the fireplace in her bedroom. It was the only art I ever saw on her walls. Nanna only had one child, my mother, but there were vague references to sad events early in her marriage. The original painting, The Angelus, resides in the Musee d Orsay. It is an 1857 work of the French painter Jean Francois Millet. The story behind the work was of workers stopping in the field to say an Angelus prayer over their harvest of potatoes. Years later Salvador Dali saw the painting and didn’t buy it. He sensed a funeral scene. At his insistence, the Louve X-rayed the piece and found an underpainting of an infants coffin later covered by the basket of potatoes. #didnannaknow #letsmakelemonade