JF Ptak Science Books    A catalog entry for the Museum of Imaginary and Impossible Things

The History of Miniature and Sub-miniature
Recurring Last Supper Images in the Images of the Last Supper

                                       The Scrote Collection

Barent Scrote (1835-1940) , founder and
self-scion of the TumLand Cattle Company of Bnillings, Montana, began
collecting images of The Last Supper following his
near-death-near-starving experience in the great Mountain Freeze of
1883. Finding the images “calming” and “filled with food”
and “complete with knives” Scrote managed to accumulate 610
paintings of what many consider and believe to be a sacred scene. The paintings were of varying talents and articulated non-artist
copiests, but they were all, indeed, old.

Following the killing
winter of 1886 Scrote lost most of his cattle and changed his
interests to sheep, also changing his collecting habits from The Last
Supper to Implements of Eating Used in the Last Supper.“My
narrow interests narrowed, and the entire scene became less
interesting, so I focused on the table, until the table itself became
boring…that’s when I became interested in the utensils” (this from
the unpublished memoirs of Barent Scrote at the American History
Center of the University of Montana, Billings).

The extraordinary
development within the subcategorization was Scrote’s enormous
discovery of separate, single, miniature, stand-alone duplicating
images of The Last Supper found within the very painting of The Last
Supper. Scrote discovered the dual images of the great event while
microscopically surveying the roughly one acre of table-tops that are
represented in his Last Supper Collection. Though most of the
images were extremely difficult to recognize, some were bafflingly
obvious but unrecognized. On display in the museum is  one of Mr.
Scrote’s most prized possessions, the Horror
of the Obvious Duplicating Last Supper
engraved by Boot Day in Amsterdam in 1724. “It is magnificent to
see the secondary Supper in its obviated presence and invisible
glory, having stood the test of standing time, being unrecognized as
a duplicating Last Supper for 350 years. It is a triumphant feeling,
sometimes, to make a discovery in the obvious”.

Mr. Scrote wrote sparingly
and convincingly of his discovery and observations, including, for
example:

• “Dual Nature of
  Miniature Last Suppers with the Last Supper (Major)”, in Horn n’
  Rip Magazine, a Magazine for Readers, vol 2/1, pp 1-3, Helena,
  Montana, September 1890.

• “The Case of Missing
  Table Ware in Dual Mini Images of the Last Supper…SOLVED”, in
  Wrting and Writing, vol 2/2, pp 23-24, Billings, Montana,
  August 1891.

• “Microscopiscal
  Semiworlds of Newly Discovered Third Dual Mini Last Suppers in the
  Works of Herrn Pieter Doeshc of Vleland, the Netherlands”, in “My
  Own Writing”, Silver City, New Mexico, vol 1/1, pp 1-2.