I love this 16th-century painting by Raphael.
The young lady seems to be throwing someone the side-eye. I bet she’s looking at the person who gave her that tiny unicorn to hold. She’s thinking, “No way this thing is housebroken.” And doesn’t it look like the unicorn is laughing? Yeah, I wouldn’t trust a laughing unicorn either. Too bad they didn’t have Twitter back then. I would have liked to see what the lady had to say about her portrait-sitting experience. What do you think she would have tweeted?
UPDATED TO ADD: Thanks to my commenters who reminded me of the tiny unicorn’s cousin, the tiny giraffe in the DirecTV “Opulence. I has it” commercial!
“I’m going to stab you with this thing when this is over, Michaelangelo.”
Can’t do better than that!!
What do you do with a baby unicorn?
@raphael thanks for the baby unicorn, and all I got you was the plague. your welcome. btw you are getting a bill from my dry cleaner. peace out.
Brilliant! Always love a good plague joke.
I’m not a dog person or a cat person. Why would you think I’d like this beast?
This post is blowing my mind! I don’t think the unicorn puppy is laughing, I think it doesn’t look very happy either.. x
You crack me up! That unicorn is scary. Forget potty training I would be afraid of it gouging me to death with it’s horn as it laughs maniacally.
Her Tweet: FU @Renaissance_Raphael! My 1 shot at immortality & its with a #f’ing_unicorn? How bout u take the horn & shove it where the sun don’t shine. I’m sending u my dry cleaning bill.
really such a beautiful picture, the unicorn detail is very cute and suprising! Does anybody know what the unicorn symbolizes (in a religious way)?
xx viviane
hippiebohoreloaded
Based on my wikipedia research, so take it for what its worth, the unicorn was a Medieval symbol of purity that according to lore was only tamable by a virgin. In religious references this virgin is the Virgin Mary and the unicorn is Christ. I’m not sure how that really makes sense as I don’t recall Christ being a wild child who could only be controlled by his mother.
Given it’s prominent horn I wonder if the unicorn might also represent, tongue in cheek, the mythical virile man who is tamed only by marriage to a chaste young maiden. My thought being that if you’re gonna convince a girl to wear a chastity belt you’ve gotta give her good reason to lock up the goodies.
BWAH!
Hahaha 🙂
Hi my dear-its a truly awesome picture, I think she may be wondering if she can keep her gorgeous necklace after the portrait sitting??
I don’t think that unicorn is laughing, in fact I don’t think it’s a unicorn,it looks like a sheep in a fancy hat to me and an angry one at that. xxx
Highlarious!
Genius!
To my followers, this was a goat. He totally stuck that fake horn on it’s forehead. Ya, I told on you, @RaphaelThePainter!
Oops. It’s “its forehead.” damn auto correct!
@raphael You want to paint my dog into a what? Are you 4 realz?
Neither one of them look happy to me, lol
Brilliant! I’d be giving HER some serious side-eye because that dress is very covetable…
That’s what Monica L. said. (kidding)
Um, yes, that is a great painting. I picture her as tweeting, ‘Parents R aNgry the bkgrnd rainbow team is late’ ‘Kbye’
HAAAA!!!
Her tweet:
Can we get this fuggin sitting DONE already? How long does it take you to paint this shizz?
Would the unicorn tweet:
Hurry up before I drop a deuce in this bitchs lap!
Or would that not be very ladylike?
Would the unicorn tweet with its horn?
That unicorn is mighty suspicious… I imagine she is looking at a large fishtank, containing a baby narwhal with no horn, with a saw and jar of glue sitting on the table next to it…
Poor baby narwhal!
@raphael Could you at LEAST have given me a tiny unicorn without MANGE?
“I prefer the miniature giraffe… so much less pointy.”
Maybe she’d pull a Wendy and tweet “What the fuck is this fucking fuckery?”
OMG this killed me. Literal LOL!
“Opulence. I has it. DirecTV, not so much.”
niiice.
I’m obsessed with the Opulence DirecTV guy and his tiny giraffe!
Hey, my spam word was dejapseu :-).
How do you know that isn’t a bleating baby lamb with a penny candy stick stuck on its head?
She would tweet, OMG! I love my new babeyeak unicorn!
@teenagemutantninjaturtle wish this bitch would shut up about candy mountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPONTneuaF4
😉
Tiny unicorns! The latest trendy fashion accessory!
I do love that necklace, though!
@blondesinglegirl says:
Do I HAVE to hold this stupid animal?
@stylistsRUS says:
Celebs like Parisia della Hilton have to make do with a kinkajou; there are hardly any heiresses left nowadays who can hold a unicorn without everyone cracking up; trust me, you have marketing edge.
@signiorblondesinglegirl says:
where’s the rest of the jewellery I bought? how is she supposed to get a first class husband dressed like that?
@topdrawerhusbands says:
How is she supposed to get a decent husband dressed like a wannabe? Trust me, this look has cut-through.
@signiorblondesinglegirl says:
Raphael, I think you’ve shrunk that pendant, it cost me a fortune, can’t you enlarge it a bit?
@RaphaelThePainter says:
I’ve put it slap in the centre of the frame, where no-one can miss it; remember too much paintshopping will undercut your brand. Trust me, the single guys will go gaga over this.
@singleblondegirl says:
Raphael, could you at least take the frizz out of my hair!!!
*Standing ovation!*
Wendy, you have made my day! My Mum & I saw this in a gallery in Italy – either Florence or Rome I think – and I made her laugh by making silly voices for both the delightful (mangy,no way!) unicorn and his mistress. In fact, so much so that we were glared at by the gallery staff member. Oh dear.
As I remember it, it was Lady: ‘This? I got a fucking unicorn as a gift?!’
Unicorn: ‘oh lovely lady, so lucky I am, ha ha’ etc etc
We had to buy the postcard, our stomachs hurt so much.
*have* to send this to my mum now…
I’m jealous that you saw it in real life!
Side-eye, haw.
hehe, she is sooo peeved off. Excited to go look at all the portraits etc at Rijks, today or tomorrow 🙂
off to read the comments but am I the only one who watched the new series “The Borgias” yesterday? According to Mr. Google, the lady in the painting is Giulia Farnese,lover to Alexander Borgia and friend to Lucrezia Borgia, so I thought of you and your poison ring!
In the series yesterday, Giulia is being painted with a small goat in her arms,and the painter says that it will become a unicorn later 🙂
I saw it! The bit about by Lucrezia wanting to hold a seahorse the way Giulia has a goat/unicorn was cute. It was a nice touch to have them recreate a real painting, although there’s no actual painting of Lucrezia by Rapahel.
Also, I love that my catcha is “vampbill.”
LOL….