40cm x 40cm - 2011

French fries, acrylic, crystal resin

Antoine Parmentier, a French army pharmacist, was taken prisoner during the Seven Years War (1756-1763), and was fed potatoes during his prison diet in Prussia. He found that he liked them, so after his release he managed to introduce them to the French court. Marie Antoinette became a great fan of the tuberous, thusly the potato became fashionable and entered French cuisine. The name of the ingenious chef who first sliced the potato into long slender pieces and fried them, remains unknown. But the country’s paternity - depicted in the painting by the colours of its flag: blue, white and red - lodges eponymously in the world-spread snack.