SONG OF THE KITCHEN-TABLE LEAR

  
    Each a good egg or an empty shell

    What can these portraits silently tell

    Something of culture or civilization

    These wafer-thin waifs sans fertilization?

    Storm in an eggcup – Lear and his clown –

    One's kept his Motley, one's lost his crown.

    There's drama revealed in all faces and shells

    That's what this Breakfast double act tells.

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These eggshell self-portraits of Lear and the Fool were inspired by images of the Clown Egg Collection, which a friend recently sent me. The collection, which records every clown's make-up on an eggshell, is owned by Clowns International and is on display in the Clowns Museum at Wookey Hole Caves near Wells in Somerset. These fragile artefacts are portraits in miniature of famous clowns.