There are many questions about the meaning of the painting below. One theory is that the woman on the right is the mistress of Henry the 4th and is pregnant, as represented by the pinching of her nipple by her sister, left. The woman in the background is thought to be the maid knitting a garment for the baby to come. No one knows for sure as the artist is unknown.

Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses soeurs, Louvre Museum

So far on this trip we usually stay only 2/3 days in each location and since we have given ourselves a whole week in Kerela, one of our missions was to find a talented Indian portrait artist who could paint us a portrait of Rick Steves, famed travel writer, my uncle, and the sponsor of the Hearts of the World India Tour. We would add the portrait to the growing decor of our painted touring vehicle.

A week is still not a lot of time to paint something of this sort and so we began the search immediately. Surprisingly, to our relief, we found an artist right away. He was perfect. He had great technical portraiture skill, was full of smiles and said he could finish the painting in four days. He even ran his own art supply store. We gave him a deposit and walked away feeling accomplished. 

Three days later we decided to stop in and check out his progress. We saw the painting discarded in the corner, white paint covering his initial sketch.
“It’s a very difficult face to paint,” he said. My stomach knotted. There was no other point on our trip where we’d be in a place for four days to get this painting made. Kochi was our only chance and we only had 48 hours left.
“Ok,” I said, half hopeful, half desperate, “How long do you think it will realistically take?" Looking down, he shook his head shamefully, "One month.” Orien and I looked at each other in disbelief. “You know that we are leaving the day after tomorrow,” we told him. He shook his head again, no more smiles. “Impossible,” he said.

He gave us the number of another painter and in a panic, we transported the large plywood panel over to his studio on our rented bicycles.

In a kind of miraculous resolution, the artist was there, was good, and could start on the painting right away and finish before we had to leave. We were thrilled! We handed him our design, Rick as a “Travel Guru,” levitating a pen, and went out for a celebratory dinner.

The following evening, we received an urgent email from the artist saying. “Some problems with the painting. Come right away.” Time was running out. We raced on our bikes through the pouring rain to his studio and discovered the panel on his easel, untouched. He explained that as he was Muslim, he could not paint the third eye, or the hand in the upright position. This was a disaster, we were leaving in less than 18 hours. 

He was very concerned about where the painting would be seen and explained that another Muslim artist had painted a Hindu piece and as a consequence had his hand cut off.

And so, to spare him of this severe and brutal punishment, like the famous painting Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses soeurs, the artist of “Travel Guru,” will remain… “Unknown.”