Amazon Reviewers: $1.4M Monet Painting ‘Clearly Used’

Funny Amazon reviews have emerged as a sort of social critique cum random trolling exercise, and of course, the recent Amazon listing of a $1,450,000 Monet painting (L’Enfant a la tasse) has drawn in the usual suspects with humorous reviews.

Before Monet’s multi-million dollar work graced Amazon, we saw reviewers come out in force to review Tuscon milk (“Has anyone else tried pouring this stuff over dry cereal? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!”), Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix (“made one for my daughter’s birthday party and everyone but her died of uranium poisoning”), Bic “lady pens” (“now my husband has told me I don’t need a fancy pen for use around the… [h]e said I could continue using my pencil”), the Banana slicer (“for decades I have been trying to come up with an ideal way to slice a banana”) and the shoes Wendy Davis wore for her historic filibuster over abortion (“guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day.”)

Now Claude Monet’s Amazon listing is getting the funny Amazon reviews treatment, with pranksters posting:

“For as much as I paid I’m a little upset that this isn’t a new painting. You can see OBVIOUS cracks and I’m worried that the artwork has had several owners before me. I might return to Amazon if I can’t get in touch with the seller. 1 out of 5 stars.”

“Every other day, I ring my bell and wait for my butler to come. ‘Jeeves, can you please move the Monet to the solarium?’ ‘Jeeves, can you please move the Monet to the library? No, not that library. The one on the third floor.’ ”

“I really wrote this review to warn casual searchers that some bunch of opportunists are trying to rip off the unwary or inexperienced browser by flooding Amazon with their cheap replicas, under the confusingly similar name ‘Manet.’ Remember, it’s ‘Monet,’ with the ‘o that is the real thing. Apparently it’s permitted by the Terms of Conditions for people to sell ‘Manet’ product, as long as (when pushed!) they admit somewhere in the fine print that their ‘Manet’ paintings aren’t genuine Monets. Seems as unethical as hell to me, but I guess all we fans can do is warn the gullible.”

You can view Amazon’s Monet reviews over on the site.