Late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein owned a painting depicting former President Bill Clinton in a blue dress.
In a batch of newly released images from the Justice Department, a photo of the painting was found in the Epstein files.
>100 NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PHOTOS FROM JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S SECRET FILES – SLIDESHOW
For some time, a rumor spread online that Epstein owned a painting of Clinton in a blue dress.
The painting is a framed work created in 2012 by the Australian-born artist Petrina Ryan‑Kleid, depicting Clinton wearing a blue dress and high heels, titled Parsing Bill.
It was originally made as a student piece at the New York Academy of Art, intended as a satirical commentary on how presidents are portrayed.
The interest in Parsing Bill reignited after it was discovered that the piece was owned by Epstein.
In August 2019, Ryan-Kleid initially spoke to Artnet, an online platform for the international art market, about the massive media attention her painting was receiving.
“I live a quiet life, and I really just had a naive, newly arrived foreigner’s idea for a thesis,” she told the outlet.
“It was just a silly school artwork that was supposed to show, pictorally, the messages we are bombarded with regarding these presidents,” she added.
The artist confirmed that the choice of a blue dress is a reference to Monica Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress, an important piece of evidence in the investigation of Clinton’s affair.
“Since I’m Australian, I wasn’t then, nor am I now, partisan about American politics,” she said while reflecting on her painting. “At the time, most of my ideas were fresh from the Daily Show or from Australian cable TV.”
Despite this, the painting is said not to be centered around making fun of the idea of a man wearing a dress.
According to Ryan-Kleid, Parsing Bill is about “how opposition parties caricature presidents.”
The painting was bought at the 2012 Tribeca Ball, a fundraiser for the school, and the artist believed it sold for nearly $1,300.
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