Keep the Tip

Let's discuss some rather curious people and their unusual creations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. When an artist begins painting, I often wonder
what inspired them. Whatever their motivation, profit fits into the
equation for many. After all, a professional painter's job is
to paint, just like a carpenter or a farmer, laboring

(00:49):
away on something that can sell. Art, it seems, can
sometimes be a means to a pay day. So when
Eduard Mane was commissioned by art collector Charles A. Frusy
to paint a bundle of asparagus, Mane had no questions
to ask. He was at the latter stages of life,
his celebrity making him highly sought after for such work,
and as for Charles, he was in the energetic stage

(01:12):
of art collecting. Charles, who was also an enthusiastic art
critic at the time, became enamored with the Impressionist style
of art at the tender age of thirty one, so
he commissioned a series of paintings from artistic geniuses across Europe,
all backed by the significant capital of his family business.
Along with the piece that he would commission from man A,

(01:33):
Charles also purchased another forty or so works of art
from legends like Pizarro, Renoir, Degas and Monet. His business
dealings must have been favorable too, because Renois even saw
fit to include Charles wearing a stylish top hat in
his work Luncheon of the Boating Party. At the time
of the commission, man A had already become something of

(01:54):
a mainstay on the artistic scene. Music in the Tuileries
had propelled him and his artistic vision, and a slew
of similarly stylistic masterpieces followed over the next few decades. However,
he was in an unfortunate stage of declining health. In fact,
by this point, Mana was already partially paralyzed in the legs,
but that didn't stop him from painting, even in the

(02:16):
case of this commission from Charles, A Bunch of Asparagus. Now,
the painting itself is pretty self explanatory. It features a
bundle of asparagus, tied twice across the middle, as if
recently purchased. Sitting on a top of bed of lettuce,
which itself sits atop a white marble countertop. There isn't
a lot to it, but as with all of Mayonnai's work,

(02:39):
there is motion to the painting, well as much motion
as a bundle of asparagus can spare. At least, the
agreed upon payment was a sturdy eight hundred francs roughly
seventeen hundred dollars today. Charles, being no stranger to large
sums of money, decided to do man A one better
and pay him a thousand francs, presumably for a job

(02:59):
well done. A tip is rather generous, after all. Man
A didn't take it that way, though, or perhaps he
was just feeling saucy. Seeing that he had been overpaid.
Man A took out his oil paints again, prepared a canvas,
and set to work. His muse was asparagus, only this
time man A didn't paint a bunch. He left out

(03:21):
the lettuce bed as well, though he did keep in
the marble countertop, on top of which sat one lonely
asparagus teetering on the edge upon completing the painting, man
A sent the work to Charles with a note, there
was one sprig missing from your bundle, it read. Apparently
for his own amusement or not, man A had seen
the extra franks as a miscount on how many asparagus

(03:44):
were in the bundle, and not as a tip as
if Charles had overpaid for asparagus at the grocery store,
and not in commissioning for a painting. But whatever the case,
man A successfully immortalized the artistic qualities of the asparagus,
not once, but twice. A lot more vegetables than most
people are willing to put up with, for sure, but

(04:05):
certainly good for us after all, art, as they say,
feeds the soul. People with too much money often spend

(04:26):
it on the most absurd things like mega yachts, private islands,
and space companies. Rarely is the person who donates his
wealth for the common good, who helps lift their fellow
humans out of poverty and into a life of relative comfort. Sadly,
John Fuller was also not that person. Fuller, also known
as Mad Jack, was born in England in seventeen fifty

(04:49):
seven to Francis and the Reverend Henry Fuller. His father
passed away when John was only four, though, and several
years later he went off to Eton College to pursue
his education. And then and in seventeen seventy seven, his
life changed forever. His uncle Rose Fuller, a wealthy plantation
owner and member of Parliament, died and left him a gift.

(05:10):
His uncle's estates in Sussex, as well as his plantations
in Jamaica, now belonged to his twenty year old nephew,
whose newfound wealth allowed him to pursue any whim or
dream he could come up with. It also gave him
a bottomless well of money to spend on booze, which
he did often. Over the years, Mad Jack, as he

(05:30):
would come to be known, grew in both size and reputation,
earning him another unflattering nickname, the Hippopotamus. And while other
men of his status might have restricted their heavy drinking
two evening hours or only with friends, Jack was inebriated
often and at inappropriate times. For example, he was once
forced out of Parliament after causing a drunken disruption during

(05:53):
an important hearing. Once he'd finally left the chamber, the
speaker resumed the session. Jack then re appeared to continue
his tirade and was escorted out by the Sergeant at Arms.
But drinking wasn't Jack's only obsession. Being a plantation owner,
he believed in slavery and the benefits of owning other
human beings. It wasn't uncommon for him to use his

(06:15):
position as a member of Parliament to advocate for slavery
as well, and with the money he earned from such
evil means, he contributed to things like the arts and
sciences in England. The painter J. M. W. Turner produced
several commissions for him, and Fuller often donated his money
to worthwhile causes, like helping the Royal Institution of Great

(06:36):
Britain when it was facing money problems. His contributions helped
establish the role of Fullerian professor across a variety of disciplines.
The first Fullerian professor of chemistry, for example, was one
Michael Faraday, who went on to make numerous discoveries in
electromagnetism and electro chemistry. When Jack wasn't giving money to

(06:57):
artists and institutions, though he was giving it to architects
and mason's. His property in the village of Brightling became
something of a museum for odd little buildings. They were
called follies, useless but enticing structures built on a wealthy
landowner's property, also called eye catchers. These follies gained popularity

(07:17):
during the eighteenth and early nineteen centuries, especially in England,
and were often modeled in the Romantic style. A folly
might resemble the ruins of an ancient Greek temple or
a tower as found on a medieval castle. They could
be covered in vines or artificially aged to look much
older than they were, and of course Jack had several

(07:38):
of these follies installed on his land. The first was
the Tower, a hollow cylinder that looked like the last
remaining part of a fairytale castle. Allegedly, he had it
erected so that he could look out on another castle
that he had purchased several miles away. Then there was
the sugar Loaf, the tall cone like spire that had
been built to settle a bet Fuller drunk at the time.

(08:02):
Of course, had wagered with the Vicar of Darlington that
he could see the spire of Darlington Church from his home. Well,
the church was two and a half miles away and
not clearly visible, so the sugar loaf was built to
resemble the tall, pointed roof of the church. It was
completed in a single night. In the following day, Jack
had the vicar over for dinner. He brought him to

(08:24):
the window and showed him the view there as clear
as day. The vicar saw the spire in all its glory,
and Jack won his bet. Oh and then there was
the Needle, which was a massive obelisk and thought to
have been erected in honor of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo.
And the temple with its Greek columns and domed top,
which held numerous parties and became kind of a hangout

(08:47):
spot for Fuller and his friends. He also built an observatory,
one of two purpose built constructions outfitted with a camera
obscura and a telescope. And finally, and strangest of all
was Mad Jack's pyramid. It was twenty five ft tall
with a doorway at its entrance. This pyramid, a bizarre

(09:07):
sites on a private English property, served one very specific function.
It would hold Mad Jack Fuller's body following his death.
Within the triangular mausoleum, Jack was allegedly seated upright at
a table with his top hat on. A roast and
a bottle of ports were placed in front of him,
and pieces of broken glass were scattered all over the

(09:30):
floor to keep the devil from taking his soul. In reality,
Jack wasn't placed at the table. He was buried beneath
the pyramid instead, but as property and all the follies
are still around today. In fact, they become a popular
destination for visitors to Brightling and serve as a reminder
of what the ultra wealthy truly value in life to

(09:52):
somehow feel important. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award

(10:15):
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious. Ye