George Condo (b. 1957)

In the early 1990s, George Condo embarked on a uniquely decadent and revolting project with his friend Prince Ernst August von Hannover. Together, the two conspired to create a perfume that would "contain the worst smells possible;" they dubbed it Desireah ("Ernst, the new Prince of Pongs," The Daily Mail, 8 February 2007, n.p.). In order to fashion a receptacle fit for such a nauseating concoction, the duo commissioned Viennese jeweler A. E. Köchert, whose ancestors catered to the emperors of Austria and to several other European courts. The subject work is the design that Condo executed for the interior of the elaborate perfume bottle encrusted with rubies, diamonds and sapphires. Hinging at the waist, the drunken juggler opens to reveal the repulsive nectar contained within his person.