DECORATIVE LACQUER TRAY - POISON

STORY BEHIND POISON LACQUER DECORATIVE TRAY

The parting of the lips, the rubbing of the flesh, the sharing of breath—poison begs intimacy to penetrate the defences. We intoxicate to subdue, to delude and to charm, be it others or ourselves.

Poison’s delicate artfulness and subtle presence take a particularly feminine touch. An aromatic handful dried and ground like spice. A floral spray extracted and reduced. A vial of saps and secretions fermented like rare vintage.

Like India’s Visha Kanyas, secret agents, poison damsels sent by kings to seduce and subjugate their enemies. Or medieval Naples’ Signora Tofana, who marketed her eponymous Aqua to aspiring widows as a fragrance and religious ointment. Four slow doses, giving departing husbands time enough to redress their sins and prepare their wills. In France, meanwhile, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers’ enthusiasm for “inheritance powders” prompted a noble fashion such that, terrified, Louis XIV revived the Chambre Ardente to smoke out conspirators.

Lust, luxuria. Luxus, excess. Just as the poisoner’s machinations prey on our moral frailty, its mechanisms turn our mortal bodies on our selves. Not for nothing, then, that the Sumerian goddess of venoms, Gula, gave her name to the Latin for gluttony.

Wherein lies darkest truth: we’ve but ourselves to blame.