That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for July 03, 2023

After this portrait of the Mayor of Amsterdam’s son, the artist found his work requests dried up.

/// Here we see Gerard Andriesz Bicker,

(so obese that we fear for his ticker).

Nowadays some might snicker:

“Since his blubber is thicker

than a whale’s— that boy can hold his liquor.”

He’s a real catch for the women. He’s rich and is going to die early.

Henry the 8th Junior High photo…

Considering that painters tend to flatter their subjects…erk.

No, you may not have another helping. Don’t you know that there’s a famine in the land?

No one messed with Shermie when the gloves were off. (or on)

The boy’s in appalling condition/

But he’s also a boy with a mission/

because of his weight/

he’s not just a por-trait/

he’s a one man art exhibition.

….and paint the fries green so people think I’m on the asparagus diet.

Invention of the panorama….

The model of “success”. He’s rockin’ the opulence bod.

“Wha?”

Mason Reese when he was still cute……well, not really cute, but better than he looks today.

Should be painted in landscape not portrait.

You can tell by the c0€k of his wrist/

That he’s unused to cocking his fist/

and he’s not good at sports/

but cream puffs of all sorts/

he finds terribly hard to resist..

The Campbell’s Kid at puberty.

Just how many canvases were on you?

Weird Al about to sing “I’m Fat”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDpGsFI3WNg

Here come’s Honey Boo-Boo’s great-great-great-grandmother.

Why do I get the feeling that young Gerry Bicker was a real PIA to paint and left artist van der Helst regretting he had doubled his fees?

The perfect likeness of a rich, spoiled, nasty brat!

If you take off a few pounds, I can make it worth for you……

Is that her dinner napkin she’s holding, having just wiped off her face after her seventh return trip to the buffet line at Golden Corral?

On a completely unrelated note, today I learned about the Great Dutch Flesh-Tone Paint Shortage of 1642.

Is he eating the napkin?

There are times in history when only the rich can afford ($$) to be fat, and other times when only the rich have the $$ to afford thin.

“Good, good. Now show us some leg.”

Portrait of Gerard Andriesz Bicker, son of Andries Bicker and lord of Muiden: 

Paste (including the quote marks) 

"Category:Pendant portraits by Bartholomeus van der Helst" site=commons.wikimedia.org 

(syntax supported by the Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ecosia and Yandex search engines) in the browser address bar (or search for it using one of those search engines) and choose the first Category: found and once there find the text string SK-A-147, and click its link for info and links that point to more info (perhaps best viewed using Google Chrome, which can automatically translate most webpages if necessary) about this roughly jumbo envelope size painting.

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3158 (July 3, 2023) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger, if you trim what’s after .png from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to the blog entry with my comment pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. So far, 5 works by him have been used here, the June 6, 2023, strip being the prior.

I see bumps on the highway ahead/

For the roadway is covered with bread/

It’s that crazy Dutch diet/

(No sane person would try it!)/

By the time he’s nineteen he’ll be dead..

NOW I understand how the Little Dutch Boy was able to plug a leak in the d ike all by himself.

It is not the canvas. It is the dozen donuts.

Dude just needs a neckbeard and a trucker cap.

“When he had his appendix removed at last, they didn’t know whether to operate or blast” Homer and Jethro, “Let Me Go Blubber”

Lord, My soul is ripped with riotincited by my wicked diet.“We Are What We Eat,” said a wise old man!and, Lord, if that’s true, I’m a garbage can.

I want to rise on Judgment Day, that’s plain!But at my present weight, I’ll need a crane.So grant me strength, that I may not fallinto the clutches of cholesterol.

May my flesh with carrot-curls be sated,that my soul may be polyunsaturatedAnd show me the light, that I may bear witnessto the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

And at oleomargarine I’ll never mutter,for the road to Hell is spread with butter.And cream is cursed; and cake is awful;and Satan is hiding in every waffle.

Mephistopheles lurks in provolone;the Devil is in each slice of baloney,Beelzebub is a chocolate drop,and Lucifer is a lollipop.

Give me this day my daily slicebut, cut it thin and toast it twice.I beg upon my dimpled knees,deliver me from jujubees.

And when my days of trial are done,and my war with malted milk is won,Let me stand with the Saints in HeavenIn a shining robe—size 37.

I can do it Lord, If You’ll show to me,the virtues of lettuce and celery.If You’ll teach me the evil of mayonnaise,of pasta a la Milannaisepotatoes a la Lyonnaiseand crisp-fried chicken from the South.

Lord, if you love me, shut my mouth.

~ By Victor Buono ~

I see your Muumuu, and raise you this bed spread.

He must have been posing for quite a while, those french fries are turning brown. But he just couldn’t put them down. It’s not in his nature.

Mr. eatitall will not take the advice to eat less from Dr. N, so he will die a virgin.

Georgie Porgie as a teenager.

When I saw this or a similar subject at the Rijksmuseum, I was reminded of a pattern I’d read about in Salem starting about the same time that Grandpa would build a trading fortune, Dad would maintain or add to it, and Sonnyboy would lose it all on self-indulgence.

The skirt accent looks like tire tread.

Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter’s cousin, sitting for his official portrait.

Photos of the castle at Muiden include one of a suit of armor into which he would never have fit.

/// Seems, because of the Fourth of July,

we’ll have one extra day with this guy.

He may be metaphor,

but if I guess what for,

that could earn me a punch in the eye.

“Do my hands look small in this?”

NO! I don’t want to sit in an aisle seat. I want the middle seat.

Happy Fourth to all !

(The portrait painter’s reply to Steve Melcher’s caption above:)

/// Please, before more complaints you begin,

view the painting— I think we both win.

Look! I’ve tightened your skin

and just one double chin,

so, compared to real life, you look thin!