Is Lucian Freud Mocking Château Mouton-Rothschild?

You be the judge. Since 1945, leading arists such as Georges Braque, Francis Bacon, and Ilya Kabakov have created original artworks for the label of Château Mouton Rothschild, the world-renowned claret produced on the Mouton vineyards in the French village of Pauillac. It was announced last week that Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, the owner of Mouton, had given the commission for the 2006 vintage, which hits stores this spring, to Lucian Freud. But the British painter didn’t whip up anything the least bit characteristically craggy or moody. Instead, he sketched the head of a zebra and a potted palm tree.

The work’s spare, doodle-like qualities make us suspect that Freud began and completed the work either while on the phone with the Baroness about the commission or after sampling a few bottles of previous vintages (for inspiration, of course). The company, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, looks to the painter’s grandfather and takes a more Freudian view of the label, describing it in a press release as “a joyously exotic transposition of the pleasure of drinking, in which the vinestock is transformed into a springing palm tree and the winelover into a happily anticipatory zebra.” Sometimes a zebra is just a zebra.

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