Sarasota News Leader

03/29/2013

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Sarasota News Leader March 29, 2013 Arts in Paris. It was a gift from the last African emperor of Xianduuto to Desirée, Napoleon Bonaparte's fiancée. When Napoleon unceremoniously dumped her to wed Josephine, the egg left France with Desirée, who married Crown Prince and Regent Bernadotte and thus became queen of Sweden. Page 82 the egg in the rubble. The government of France paid Turkey the phenomenal sum of 4.1 Turkish kuruş for its return. At first, the Faux Arts museum displayed it on a white satin pillow, but when naturalism and an understanding of our natural world became more au courant, curators placed it on a humble nest of pine needles. That display is totally incorrect because, as you will soon learn, this bird does not construct a nest. A correct display of it is in the Yúrén jié Museum in Beijing, China. During the brief but bloody Twelfth Hour War between France and Sweden on 31 March 1816, (we are just three years and two days shy of its bicentennial commemoration!), the egg was stolen by the occupying Ottoman troops, led by Nisan Eşek Pasha, Now, let's meet Mama bird! and it ended up in the Nisan Eşeğin Oğlu THE BIRD Sen Museum in Constantinople, unseen and The contrast between this exquisite egg, one forgotten for some 150 years. fit to be on display at Tiffany's at Easter, and In 1966, during the Cypress Conflict, the mu- its soon-to-be extirpated parents is so vast seum was burned down. In 1968, two truant that one would think Mother Nature was schoolboys, sneaking cigarettes, uncovered playing some kind of a joke. I would like to The egg in the Musée des Faux Arts. Photo courtesy APRF Wire Services

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