Oddity of the Week - Da Vinci at Ellis Island
Created | Updated Aug 11, 2013
Artists suffer.
Great Art at Ellis Island
The year: 1908. The place: Ellis Island, the first port of call for, ultimately, millions of new Americans. Ellis Island was the processing centre for the 'wretched refuse' of Europe's 'teeming shore', according to the poem on the Statue of Liberty. But was is Leonardo da Vinci doing there?
According to the protesting artist who drew this, he's being held up by pettifogging bureaucrats.
Here's how the Library of Congress tells it:
Illustration shows several artists identified as "Lawrence, Gainsborough, D. Teniers, Rubens, Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, Duerer, Velasquez, Van Dyke, Reni", and the friar Girolamo Savonarola as "S", being held in a holding pen labeled "Prohibitive Tariff on Art" at Ellis Island Immigration Station.
Shame on them. Those people from the teeming shore could use some good art to liven up the place. Besides, they could probably decipher the da Vinci Code, and all.
It's a nice picture, though.
