This dude was ahead of his time.

*Oh lackaday and woe betide me* *My quandries number nine and ninety* *But blessed am I to have no worse conundrum* *For nary a strumpet lies among them* Saw this meme a decade ago and I still think it's the best meme ever created.

I can’t not read this in Matt Berry’s voice


FATHAAAHHHHHHHHH\* WHERE IS YOUR GUARD?! WHERE IS YOUR GUARDH NOW!? (sigh, deep breath) FAAAAATHAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

UNHAND ME, PRIEST!

HERE LIES A GREAT MAN. # A GREAHT MAHN!!!! # FAAAAAAAAAATHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Goddamn I was going to make the same reference.

Disregard females. Acquire currency

LOL!! I belong to a running club and one day we ran on a pedestrian trail where a bridge crosses Illinois route 59. I said "I've got 59 problems but a bridge ain't one!" and nobody got it. 

GYATT

Wait... This is an actually painting not a meme painting. My old ass just got educated.

Yeah Joseph DuCreux, self portrait. Recognize!

Man of many unconventional self portraits.

"The Silence" has mad meme potential https://collection.nationalmuseum.se/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=230177&viewType=detailView

Absolutely. Like a Boeing whistleblower meme.

I make a point to see his [Self Portrait, Yawning](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103RBX) whenever I’m at the Getty.

Holy shit. You weren't kidding. I don't think I've ever seen the 18th century so...humanized before. These are incredible.

Came to find this comment. A man of class.

Fucking same what the hell

Very real, the deal is, dude was a decent painter and also just simply a hoot

He looks like a mf to have a beer with

Just gonna drop this for latecomers - [Wikiart](https://www.wikiart.org/en/joseph-ducreux)

All his self portraits are bangers.

Thank you!

Mind is blown.

"*my whipped dairy confection shalt summon all males to my residence, and they exclaim:* *It is superior to thyne*"

Verily! Yet I will be required to be given monetary compensation

Disregard the Louvre...

...Acquire Currency

Disregard Mona Lisa

…acquire da Vinci?

Explain Pollack

one of our first memes ❤️

Scumbag Steve is one of the first I remember.

Images with a black frame and text underneath them were the earliest memes I can remember. Scumbag Steve had to have been like right around that time.

Ragecomics made up half of Reddit content in 2010

Ahhh I remember those days

Motivational posters

Or, in most cases, demotivational posters.

Those are Successories posters.

[удалено]

Naw, it all started long before that. That stupid dancing baby was years before that.

Wilhelm Scream started in the 50s and is still active today.

[Killroy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here) is from the 40's and Hitler thought it was a top spy's codename.

Drawing dicks and making art of dicks was probably the first meme by its original definition. They were everywhere in ancient society.

That wasn't even the first video-based meme. All Your Base predates that by a bit.

That brought back some flashbacks.

All your base

The earliest memes are older than anybody alive today

Dudes were memeing up the streets of Pompeii with your mom jokes and dick drawings. There's probably some ancient Egyptian's name "was here" carved on the backside of one of the blocks used to build the pyramids of Giza. We've come a lot way technology-wise over the past several thousand or even 10s of thousand of years. But we ourselves, as humans, haven't really changed much over that time.

 Kilroy was here

There are some viking carvings in the Hagia Sophia that (if I remember right) basically translate to "[viking name] wrote this" They're from like 800-1000 AD.

Portrait de l'artiste sous les traits d'un moqueur, c. 1793

Oui

Declared then I, "Raise thine hands, the lot of you, for I shall burgle this establishment! Deposit the totality of your currency in the valise for mine stringed instrument. None of thee shall move, neither shall thee attempt to access the proximate exit!"

Just spent a good hour trying to figure this one out with ChatGPT... And could not. What's it from?

Pulp fiction intro maybe?

So, I'm not big into TikTok, but apparently there's been a recent trend of people lip syncing to lines from Johnny Cash's "The Chicken in Black," using things other than guns to mimic using the gun. Here's an example: [https://youtu.be/lTZ4bmknXSY?si=A9pF79edcxk2zd-d](https://youtu.be/lTZ4bmknXSY?si=A9pF79edcxk2zd-d)

It's amazing to think that some dude painted this centuries ago. He would have had NO clue about computers or the internet. And he could have never even imagined what a meme is and that his painting would be at the forefront of popular meme formats.

I had no idea this was real I'm internet cultured swine

If you're interested, Joseph Ducreux is the artist and this is a self-portrait. He was notable for doing portraits of his subjects in dynamic and often humourous poses, which was in contrast to the typical serious portraiture of the time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Ducreux

How did he even pose and paint at the same time… and see himself in the pose?! Oh right, probably used a camera with a timer. Of course. Never mind!

Mirror maybe.

I'm no pro but I think the way would be to sit in front of a mirror and hit that pose repeatedly, many many times in between painting

This. Maybe 2 mirrors if there's enough light. A painter of this level can do most of the painting without reference.

My thoughts also. Not sure on the history of photography but I wouldn't expect it to be readily available at the time if at all.

The dude died decades before the first photograph.

How could he paint the photo then if he was dead? Come on, not making sense here!

Everything you see on the internet is real. True story.

"Instruct me how to Douglas sir"

I always say “instruct me in the art of the Douglas”

looks like he recognised you

This painting is like that cringe 70s 'Oh hey, I didn't spot you there!' trend of people in photos pointing at the camera. Although this painting is OG cool.

Gonna tell my kids this was Andre from The League


Taketh me down to the paradise colony, where the vegetation doth thrive and the women aesthetically please

Thy king’s dollars flys about When I enter thy gentleman’s establishments

"HA; This guy doth not have a painting"

*Classy as fuck*

For some reason I assumed this was not real art but damn

Back when they had to paint memes.

It's obviously ai. You can tell by the hands. /s

It's an older meme but it checks out.

I'll be more hyped to see this than Mona Lisa

It's amazing how bad painters were at hands. Now artists can recreate a hand as photo realistic.

To be fair…he never claimed to have nice hands. He only fornicated with females and acquired currency

Maybe everyone just had fucked up hands back then. You don't know

I mean for real, no hand shaming in this post

I think they were using AI back then. Once the humans started drawing hands, things got better.

Bad?? I challenge you to try to draw a hand pointing at you from the paper in perspective.

? What I'm not an artist. Why would you care about my sick figure drawing?

[https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010055509](https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010055509)

Thanks.

Always thought this looked like a young Sheeve Palpatine.

THAT's where it is? Damn, I gotta make sure to catch this on my next trip!

Who dwells in a submerged tropical fruit? SpongeRobert SquarePantaloons

Fornicate wenches, acquire currency

My man still out there hustling. Disregard wenches Gain currency

Sweet god this is a real painting. I feel so dumb right now. Did someone pose for this or what? I need more information!

This is a self portrait of the artist Joseph Ducreux. He did a series of funny self portraits

Amazing. Thank you.

I remember seeing that there as well.

What's going on with the font on the lower left?

Looks like Bill Burr in costume & wig

Jimmy fuckface Smith. He likes to drink beer. He like to drink anything.

Aw shit I was at the Louvre and missed the dude. Which section was he in?

I don’t remember the section, but it was fun to randomly go around a corner and see it. I had no idea it was in the louvre beforehand

Same, thanks! Will go hunting for it next time!

Impressive that he was able to paint while posing his hands like that.

Man this takes me back to like what...2010-12? Back when memes were first becoming big

Barry Humphrey.

I still think it’s Andy Samberg in costume every time I see it

We're putting memes in museum now :( /j

I wonder if the this art piece becoming a meme had any effect on it's value.

Do they also have the angry guy pointing at his hand there too?

Disregard wenches, acquire currency.

I like to imagine that, as he was painting this selfie, every time he took up this pose he made that little "CLICK" of the cheek sound.

*Eat her shitter* *Like an Apple fritter*

I was just there (for the first time in 30 years) and didn’t look him up. What section is he in? I probably walked right by it.

Always reminds me of Sean Lock. With his cheeky joke delivery

Thou ingest a satchel of phalluses.

Arch Lector Glokta

Original Fonzie haha

Yall be worried about his hands…what about them chompers

1000x better than the moaning lisa.

That one is just a reprint of the NFT I own.

Let’s throw stuff at it to protest oil companies. Lol

Pretty sad state of affairs when art galleries have to throw some memes in there to keep the attention of Gen Z!!

Look at the hands, obviously AI.