Our survey of artworks continues with Plenipotentiary With Cornflakes Carton And Nightjar. This is a large painting, though I have not measured it, showing, as its title indicates, a plenipotentiary with the traditional attributes of his office, a cornflakes carton and a nightjar. Executed in scumbled daubs of emulsion on a sheet of corrugated cardboard, the plenipotentiary is shown leaning insouciantly against a mantelpiece, holding in his right hand a cornflakes carton while a nightjar perches atop his head. Stipples of what looks like gouache have been stippled hither and thither about the composition to add élan. There is an unseemly smudge at the bottom left, above which the painter’s signature has been scribbled with a biro, seemingly so hurriedly that it is illegible. The overall style is a combination of primitivist, classical, Rococo, expressionist, winsome, cack-handed, and gorgeous.

This is probably the most important painting in the collection of the toffee apple entrepreneur Argvis Bonescrape, who refuses all permission to reproduce it in any form.

You may also enjoy : Biro Scribble With Unseemly Smudge, Nightjar With Plenipotentiary And Gouache Stipples, and Cornflakes Carton No. 17. The latter is a conceptual artwork and does not actually consist of a cornflakes carton in any form whatsoever, other than as an idea nestling in the artist’s brain. We have no current information regarding cornflakes cartons numbers one to sixteen, which may not even exist.

If you would like further information on nightjars, please consult an authoritative reference work on ornithology.