"Mr. Belley obviously dresses to the right," wryly remarks our own dear Ms. Gauger on her blog. You really ought to click on the picture to the right to see Mr. Belley in all his glory.
No further commentary has come out of her about this remarkable painting, which is a shame, as Mr. Belley's remarkable assets are probably best discussed by a female. Unfortunately, Eliza isn't posting right now, her typing limited to two finger hen-pecking from a seizure in her middle finger that seems to always exhibit itself as a physical symptom of her decadent periods of laziness.
Who was this man? What do we know about him, besides the vestigial baby arm growing out of his upper thigh? His portrait is so striking that a review of The Birth of the Modern World by C.A. Bayly, which featured Mr. Belley on the cover, drafted an excellent biography of his less physical accomplishments:
In other words, he was a strange mixture of John Holmes and Malcolm X, thumping the French over the heads with a long length of hose to convince them to outlaw slavery in colonial Africa. Someone should write a novel about this man.
Review: The Birth of the Modern World [History.ac.uk]
