Curio Folio: Da Vinci's Toaster

While exploring the metal sculptures near the train tracks, I ventured down a narrow path into an over-grown area only to find a small clearing with a large boulder in the center. As the sun shone down through the tree canopy, I saw that it was not a boulder, but a crypt of sorts, with a rusted metal door on the opposite side. So rusted in fact, that when I touched the door the hinges disintegrated leaving the door slightly ajar. A cold, stale burst of air hit me, along with a whooshing sound from below. Unable to contain my curiosity I moved aside the door and walked down a narrow stair case into a large space below, it was a section of the old Montreal metro system they had begun in the 19th century then sealed up and abandoned before completion. Somewhere above was a grating that allowed sunlight to come in, and then I saw it, a strange, twisted metal sculpture not unlike the ones up around the train tracks. But this one was different, being a scientist, I knew the metal aging and methods put it from the early 16th century, and further inspection revealed that it had an authentic signature of Leonardo Da Vinci. This must have been the long lost "Da Vinci's Toaster" that was stolen from the Montreal museum of fine arts in 1972. Just so people would believe my story, I made an accurate watercolour painting of it, because I don't bring my smart phone or camera when location painting. Clearly the device was a sort of primitive toaster, how it was powered I could not discern. Perhaps it was designed to cook pop tarts, which were recently discovered to have been invented 1.6 million years ago by Homo erectus proto-humans. We may never know. Debris began to fall from the ceiling and I rushed the painting, then escaped just in time. The entrance collapsed behind me. I just covered it up with some foliage, never to be found again except in my Curio Folio.  

Curio Folio: Da Vinci's Toaster, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, June 2025