8×10″ oil on panel
private collection.
Kiki (1680 – 1746)
An orphan who arrived in the capital of Kilsa at age 14, she took work as a servant for a small household, then as a delivery girl for the premier chocolatier in the city. It was the King who happened upon her as she delivered a large order for a children’s party on the Palace lawn. He arranged her marriage to his favorite valet at the time. The kind old King had only good — if rather unusual — intentions in mind. After the official engagement he was to have said to Kiki, ‘the boy is so ugly you know, he needs a pretty girl like you to give him children that won’t look like an orangutan with a lazy eye’. After 7 children, none of them did.