The Marvellous Sauce
This painting is an oil on panel measuring 25 x 32 inches and was painted in about 1890. The original is in the Allbright Knox Gallery in Buffalo USA.
It
depicts a young thin pessimistic chef who works for a cardinal who fancies
himself as a would be chef.
Unfortunately
for the chef, his master has the mania of thinking himself a superior
cook and prefers putting on an apron, investigating the kitchen, sampling
sauces, and burning the butter, to carrying out his religious tasks. The
worst, however, is when he "has just concocted one of his poisons
and raised his spoon towards heaven, with the triumphant cry " this
sauce is exquisite, it's a wonderful sauce ". He even forces the
chef to taste his horrible cooking.
Vibert himself was an excellent cook and inventor of sauces or at least
so he claims in his autobiographical notes. It seems that he identified
with the corpulent amateur chef rather than the thin pessimistic chef.
Can't say I blame him !!
