Oil on cardboard – 12 x 16 inch – Unique work

Once upon a time, in a pretty town in the depths of the Netherlands, there was a family of five brothers.

While their days pass quietly. While their parents spend a few days of well-deserved vacation a few hundred miles away. While …. The impossible happens. On their way back, they come across a truck, driven by a completely drunk driver, which hits them head-on and kills them instantly. When the news reaches the palace, it is a tragedy. The five sons are overwhelmed. How will they cope with this?

The reality of life catches up the next morning. The law is very clear on the subject of succession: only the eldest is entitled to ascend to the throne. Except that… Inevitably, things are not that simple. The brothers do not all agree. And even if their opinion does not matter, the quarrels settle. Brutal, frontal, sly, intestines, they show their true face. The days that follow are ruthless. The paternal grandparents arrive at the worst time. Funerals and hatred are here.

In the corridors of the old building, rumors circulate like mad, impetuous, sordid. While their parents are now six feet under, the plots are in full swing. The eldest is not particularly eager to take over. He would gladly leave his place to the next one. Except that, this one is not more inclined to continue the family line. The royal destiny, in fact, fiercely interests the youngest. The one that we barely see, hidden by the vegetation, crushed by the all-powerful force of the eldest and successively of the three other brothers in front of him. He has no chance, he obviously knows it and unless there is a miracle or rather a crazy curse, his dearest wish could suddenly come true.

But the grandparents, with their experience linked to their age and their fine intelligence, clearly felt the drama arise. They don’t have much alternative, except to urgently remove this ugly duckling whose ambitions are completely unreasonable. They therefore take this unilateral decision to send him abroad, very far, as far as possible from their pretty town in the depths of the Netherlands. And if that wasn’t enough… They prefer not to think.

This is how the destinies of the eldest and the youngest changed.