Les Nobles Bêtes · Folio II · The Giraffieri Debacle
The Giraffieri Debacle
Countess Lilliana Giraffieri · The Torrid Twist · Menton, 1909
Lilliana Giraffieri as painted by Luigi Salvatore Peccati on their first meeting · Santorini · c. 1905 · Oil on canvas · Private collection
The Giraffieri Debacle — a name the Institut adopted reluctantly, as "debacle" implies a failure, and the Countess would argue that everything proceeded exactly as she intended — centers on Countess Lilliana Giraffieri, a giraffe of considerable refinement, and her entanglement with the post-art school circle of Étienne de Mouffette, Luigi Salvatore Peccati, and the unnamed chimp who was always barefoot and soaked in turpentine.
The Countess arrived in the Riviera circle some years after the Dodo Affair had concluded. She was, by her own account, not interested in the fox's grief. She was interested in the fox's perception.
Luigi Salvatore Peccati — flamingo, dandy, Italian surrealist, founder of the Bestial Bel movement — encountered Lilliana Giraffieri on a terrace in Santorini and painted her portrait before she had finished her first glass of wine. This was his standard approach to women he found interesting. He had been asked to stop doing this in four countries. He had not stopped.
The portrait — Lilliana in the teal gown with the feathered hat, the Aegean behind her, the windmills of Oia visible in the distance — is considered one of Luigi's finest works, which he found deeply irritating, as he believed his finest work was a conceptual piece involving a taxidermied falcon and a question mark. The Countess found the portrait adequate. She said so. Luigi did not speak to her for three weeks. This was, she later noted, the most peaceful three weeks of the entire period.
The affair — if it can be called that — between Lilliana Giraffieri and Étienne de Mouffette is documented primarily through the Countess's own letters and through a note found pressed between the pages of Étienne's sketchbook, written in the Countess's hand: "E. understands the lemur situation. This changes everything. — L."
The lemur situation refers to the well-documented fact that the lemurs who staffed every significant household in the Nobles Bêtes circle — as footmen, as chambermaids, as archivists, as valets — were not, in fact, serving. They were observing. They exchanged glances. They knew things. Every member of the circle was aware of this. No one discussed it. Étienne was the first person Lilliana had ever met who acknowledged it openly, in the middle of a conversation about something else entirely.
"Monsieur, you mistake me for someone who burns. I am, as you can clearly observe, a giraffe of considerable refinement. We do not burn. We smolder, at most, and only on Tuesdays."
"But today is Tuesday."
— Exchange between Étienne de Mouffette and Countess Giraffieri, as recorded in the Countess's journal, Menton, 1909
What followed was not a love affair. It was, as the Countess described it, "an affair of the mind — two beings who had found in each other the only other creature capable of existing in a world where lemurs run everything, falcons may be stuffed, and one's son can marry someone named Account without anyone batting an eye."
Letter from Countess Giraffieri · Menton · 12 Mars 1909 · Cognancy Institut des Plumes Disparues, Accession #NB-1909-03
12 Mars 1909 — Menton.
Ils m'ont demandé de rester "derrière la toile" comme si mon objectif troublerait l'atmosphère. Déjà il savait l'égo et l'eau de pinceau.
Je les ai pris tels comme ils sont — grandioses, voués, légèrement humides.
Luigi refusait de croiser mon regard. Typique. Toujours ce béret absurde. Toujours trop rose. Et pourtant... toujours exact. Le renard n'arrêtait pas de cligner. Le singe était pieds nus et imbibé de térébenthine. Je l'ai adoré.
L'un d'eux s'est enfui. Peut-être Claude. Peut-être le valet.
J'ai appuyé sur l'obturateur. Cela ressemblait à mettre fin à une conversation que je n'avais pas l'intention d'entreprendre.
Translation: They asked me to stay "behind the canvas" as if my lens would disturb the atmosphere. He already knew about ego and brush-water. I photographed them as they were — grandiose, devoted, slightly damp. Luigi refused to meet my gaze. Typical. Always that absurd beret. Always too pink. And yet... always exact. The fox kept blinking. The monkey was barefoot and soaked in turpentine. I adored him. One of them ran away. Perhaps Claude. Perhaps the valet. I pressed the shutter. It felt like ending a conversation I had never intended to start.