I'm looking at a tin canister with a painting of a surreal landscape on the sides: there are winged dice, both on the ground and in the skies, and gigantic pearls, large enough to be playthings of the children playing on the green. On the top of the canister is the portrait of a pretty little girl of about ten. I open the canister. Inside, there's a newspaper clipping from about fifty years ago, a small (modern) doll dressed in 18th century garb, a length of lace, and some wool, apparently to cushion the rest of it.
The headline reads: "Little girls are just naturally...Divas!" with the tale of a girl in Mozart's day feted by the crowned heads of Europe as a child prodigy: the painting on top matches a photograph of a painting in the article. A paragraph or two talks about her Italian voice coach, who claimed to have taught her "by natural methods, and no tyranny" in the then-fashionable manner of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It also mentions a canister, with lace from one of her gowns, selling at auction: the dice and pearls are supposed to be a caution about the nature of fame.
At the bottom of the clipping is a note reading "For a great recital!"
Somehow I get the feeling this didn't end well....