PENIS, nd
Watercolour and pencil on oval wood fragment. 2¾ x 3¾in. (7 x 9.5cm.)
Provenance
National Trust bequest
The design has been painted on the end grain of a thin section of bough. If the design is, indeed, a penis (it is hardly a naturalistic image) then a relationship with The Pine Family (1940) immediately suggests itself. The emasculated male figure in the painting resembles a log with a side branch, the penis, sliced off. Here, in an interplay between image and object, an actual slice of branch has a penis painted on the cut end grain.
The wood has worm damage.