The title of this small still life painted by the Finnish female artist Annu Kapulainen is «halkaisija (Finnish) = diameter» (Magistrat Salzburg 2016 a-b), respectively «The morning of all mornings (aikojen aamu, Finnish = old morning)».

The work, an oil painting on hardboard, has a diameter of 21 cm and was made in 2004. The photo of the still life was taken at an art exhibition in Salzburg, Austria, in spring 2016, at which works made by Salzburg scientists in residence were presented. In 2010 Annu Kapulainen was scientist in residence in Salzburg.

The still life shows a laid breakfast table. We don’t know if breakfast is already over or not. The breakfast includes a boiled egg in an egg cup. The egg is broken and almost eaten up. Shell fragments are scattered around the egg cup. A tiny plesiosaur is visible between the shell fragments. When viewing the still life the observer may have the impression that the plesiosaur, a Mesozoic marine reptile, must just have hatched from the egg. This is a nice, convincing thought and the legend version of the painting «The morning of all mornings» mentioned above might be an indication that this impression is wanted by the artist. However, scientific reality is that plesiosaurs were not capable of walking on land and thus – as amniotes – viviparous, that is, giving birth to live young (O’KEEFE & CHIAPPE 2011).

Following the information on the > website of the artist.

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• Magistrat Salzburg (2016a): 30 Jahre artists-in-residence, 10 Jahre scientists-in-residence (Abteilung Kultur, Bildung und Wissen), 42 pp.
• Magistrat Salzburg (2016b): 30 Jahre artists-in-residence, Werkverzeichnis zur Ausstellung (Abteilung Kultur, Bildung und Wissen), 2 pp.
• O’KEEFE, F.R. & CHIAPPE, L.M. (2011): Viviparity and k-selected life history in a Mesozoic marine plesiosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia). – Science 333: 870-873.

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