Albert Barnes, famously cranky
Philadelphia art collector,
named his dog, a Brittany Spaniel mix,
Fidèle-de-Port-Manech, for a resort
in the south of France where he stayed
when on buying trips–during which
he purchased, for cheap, painting
after painting, accumulating
the world’s largest collection
of Cézannes and Renoirs, a collection
he often opened to factory workers
and other working class folk, but
when T.S. Eliot wrote, asking to view
the collection, Barnes replied with one word:
“Nuts,” signed Fidèle-de-Port-Manech.
