The motif
Luxury in flames. From rubble and ash a bottle rises like a phoenix – burning, dripping, irresistibly beautiful in its destruction.
From the open neck rise ribbons of colour in brilliant blue, quinacridone magenta and cadmium yellow; their ends blaze in bright flames. The bottle itself glows in cadmium yellow, a plain black label at its centre. Over its shoulders the paint runs in heavy streaks and pools on the floor. All around, the world stays monochrome: crumbling masonry, rising smoke, a shattered glass, shards in the dust. The colour names come from the pigments with which David paints his originals.
